Emergent Structures in Supply Chains - A Study Integrating Agent-Based and System Dynamics Modeling

Supply chain management is a demanding and complicated task due to its broad scope and the strong connectedness of its objects and issues. In order to make theoretical investigations of supply chains feasible and to support decision-making in real world supply chains, simulation models are used. An integration of system dynamics and discrete agent-based modeling is a promising combination of methods for reducing the a priori complexity of the model. The paper discusses the strengths and weaknesses of system dynamics and discrete agent-based modeling. An approach for integration of the two modeling methodologies is presented. Issues concerning the practical coupling of software environments and a simple, prototypical supply chain model are discussed. Experiments for which the integrated simulation solution is applied are described. Insights in emergent structures in supply chains are derived from these simulation analyses.