Supply chain management through a combined simulation-optimisation approach

Abstract Supply Chain Management (SCM) involves the decision-making related to resources management through the entire Supply Chain (SC), from the initial suppliers to the final customers (Shapiro, 2001) . Many of present SCM approaches consider operations research optimisation models, which often assume centralised management and are inadequate to efficiently undertake SC dynamics and uncertainty. On the contrary, simulation-based approaches are able to deal with these two issues but they are not appropriate to optimise the SC operation. In this work, a combined framework, which offers the advantages of simulation and optimisation, is proposed and a methodology is presented in order to explicitly include not only the traditional economic criteria, but also the other concerns: environment, safety, flexibility, customer satisfaction, etc. In this way, the simultaneous consideration of multiple criteria provides a way to further explore the necessary trade-offs upon which decision-making should be based. The results so fat obtained are very promising.