GROUPING LOGISTICS OBJECTS FOR MESOSCOPIC MODELING AND SIMULATION OF LOGISTICS SYSTEMS

摘要

The field of logistics is confronted with an increasing complexity. This mainly results from the immense amount of goods which are part of logistics systems and processes. To address that the description of logistics systems and processes is to be conducted from an object-oriented point of view by including object characteristics and their relations among each other. Therefore, in context of mesoscopic modeling and simulation, this paper presents a procedure which supports the conceptual modeling phase of the mesoscopic simulation approach in grouping and aggregation of logistics objects, i.e. goods and products, in an effective and credible way. This is considered as a method of simplification and will contribute to better model credibility and simulation efficiency as well as reducing model complexity. To demonstrate functionality and effectiveness of the proposed concept the grouping procedure is applied to a modeling and simulation task of a global supply chain.