Using a system dynamics approach for designing and simulation of short life-cycle products supply chain

  • Authors:

  • Enrico Briano;Claudia Caballini;Pietro Giribone;Roberto Revetria

  • Affiliations:

  • DIP Consortium, Genoa, Italy;Italian Centre of Excellence in Integrated Logistics, Genoa, Italy;Department of Industrial Production, Technology, Engineering and Modelling, Genoa, Italy;Department of Industrial Production, Technology, Engineering and Modelling, Genoa, Italy

  • Venue:
  • CEA'10 Proceedings of the 4th WSEAS international conference on Computer engineering and applications
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

The work is focused on the study of a supply chain related to short life-cycle products, that are goods produced and sold for a limited period of time like fashion goods, electronic devices, health care service and particular foodstuffs. The case study belongs to the last one category and regards a particular good produced by an important Italian food company, with several branches all over the world, operating in the field of snacks, biscuits and bread substitutes. Currently the data in the simulation model are assumed by the authors due to a delay on the provision, but the real company data should be available, properly modified for reasons of confidentiality, for the extended version of the paper. In the following sections a simulation model, implemented using the System Dynamics methodology, will be described. System Dynamics approach is suitable for complex dynamic systems like the one object of this work; this methodology considers in fact time delays and feedback loops, which heavily affect the system structure and behavior. The model has been implemented using one of the most known System Dynamics commercial software: Powersim Studio™, because of its flexibility and completeness, allowing also integration with databases, external files and ERP systems. The aim of the simulation is to identify and focus on the criticalities along the supply chain in order to minimize the total costs and, consequently, maximizing the company profits. In this work "What If" analysis has been carried out in order to show which is the best policy to adopt in terms - for instance - of safety stock or demand planning. Further developments will be focused on the resilience of these supply chains and so, to build structures able to face unexpected and damaging events.