Supply Chain Library

Taken from 'Modelling Supply Chain Dynamics: A Multiagent Approach' (1998), Jayashankar M. Swaminathan, Stephen F. Smith and Norman M. Sadeh

"We classify different elements in the supply chain library into two broad categories - Structural Elements and Control Elements. Structural elements (modeled as agents) are involved in actual production and transportation of products, and control elements help in coordinating the flow of products in an efficient manner with the use of messages. Structural elements correspond to agents and control elements correspond to the control policies in our framework. Structural and Control elements are further classified as follows:

Structural Elements
- Production (Retailer, Distributor, Manufacturer, Supplier)
- Transportation (Vehicles)

Control Elements
- Flow (Loading, Routing)
- Inventory (Centralized, Decentralized)
- Demand (Forecast, Marketing)
- Supply (Contracts)
- Information (Real-time, Periodic)

As well as the above, there is also the Customer.