Assessment of Supply Chain Performance Management Policy Using Discrete Event Simulation

With the ever-increasing competition in industries, the importance of supply chain in various companies has increased as well. Nowadays, each company in supply chain competes with rival companies. Regardingly, strategic analysis and organization of supply chain structure is crucial for survival and competition in the business arena. Simulation is among the most widely used research tools on operations which enables system performance analysis before its occurrence. The supply chain can be considered as a system and through its simulation, supply chain system performance can be evaluated before implementation. A four-level supply chain network including retailer, distributor, manufacturer, supplier has been investigated in this paper. Supply chain consists of a single product and demand per customer has been considered equal to one and shortage is not allowed as well. In this supply chain network, if the product sold to a costumer is defective, it will be returned from the costumer and instead, a new product is given to the customer. The defective product is then shipped back to the factory and after inspection, it will be either repaired or disposed. ARNA Software and a research sample in the rotational molding industry have been employed to simulate such supply chain. The simulation in this project aims to create a separate production line to produce a polyethylene tank.