Modelling the Impacts of Resource Sharing on Supply Chain Efficiency

This study investigates the impacts of resource sharing on the supply chain efficiency. Due to the increased emphasis on efficiency, modern supply chain processes are no longer labour-intensive. Supply chain management should particularly consider resource sharing. The queuing and AnyLogic approaches are developed in this paper to model and simulate complex supply chain operations. First, based on the queuing theory, this paper conducts a mathematical analysis on the resource sharing mode’s impact on supply chain efficiency; then, it performs a simulation for the resource sharing mode’s impact on supply chain efficiency. Then, in a case from the express industry, this paper quantitatively analyses the resource sharing mode’s impact on the average service length of orders, the average service time of orders, the loss rate of orders and the utilization of resources. Finally, through simulation, this study shows that the resource sharing mode is superior to the resources exclusive mode in all of the above aspects. For example, the service length of the resources exclusive mode is much longer than the total service length of the resource sharing mode. However, the service time of the resources exclusive mode is nearly equal to the total service time of the resource sharing mode; the resource sharing mode’s loss rate is approximately 90 % lower than the loss rate of the resources exclusive mode. (Received, processed and accepted by the Chinese Representative Office.)