A Real-time Simulation-Based Control Architecture for Supply Chain Interactions

Discrete-event simulation techniques have been widely used for network analysis and policy optimization. In this paper, the use of high fidelity simulation models for real-time control of supply chain interactions is presented. Most formulations for supply chain problems involve optimization of an objective function consisting of various cost components (material, production, inventory, duties, taxes) subject to constraint sets (capacity, flow, inventory, duty), which treat the variables as deterministic or as well-characterized distributions. Such an approach may not be feasible to derive an active control policy. A real-time simulation-based architecture for deriving active control policies for supply chain interactions is discussed.