Development of a Multi-agent Platform for Supply Chain-wide Order Fulfilment

Abstract

In this paper we describe an agent-based framework for modelling and simulating different processes taking place in supply networks, resulting in a supply chain simulator called SCOPE (Sistemas COoperativos para la Programación y Ejecución de pedidos). The framework is composed of reusable elements (agents and objects) allowing easy modelling of real-scale supply chains, with different companies and products. Each company in the model can use different policies and parameters for the different business functions. The framework is implemented using Swarm. Furthermore, its generic and modular structure allows to easily adding new and more complex functions for the agents. The final aim of SCOPE is to serve as a testbed to implement and analyse the effects of different management decisions related to order fulfilment over real-scale supply chains. SCOPE has been validated using different supply chains described in the literature.