| dc.description.abstract | The field of Supply Chain Management (SCM) is experiencing rapid strides in the use of Industry 4.0
technologies and the conceptualization of new supply chain configurations for online retail, sustainable and
green supply chains and the Circular Economy. Thus, there is an increasing impetus to use simulation
techniques such as discrete-event simulation, agent-based simulation and hybrid simulation in the context of
SCM. In conventional supply chain simulation, the underlying constituents of the system like manufacturing,
distribution, retail and logistics processes are often modelled and executed as a single model. Unlike this
conventional approach, a distributed supply chain simulation (DSCS) enables the coordinated execution of
simulation models using specialist software. To understand the current state-of-the-art of DSCS, this paper
presents a methodological review and categorization of literature in DSCS using a framework-based
approach. Through a study of over 130 articles, we report on the motivation for using DSCS, the modelling
techniques, the underlying distributed computing technologies and middleware, its advantages and a future
agenda, as also limitations and trade-offs that may be associated with this approach. The increasing adoption
of technologies like Internet-of-Things and Cloud Computing will ensure the availability of both data and
models for distributed decision-making, and which is likely to enable data-driven DSCS of the future. This
review aims to inform organizational stakeholders, simulation researchers and practitioners, distributed
systems developers and software vendors, as to the current state of the art of DSCS, and which will inform
the development of future DSCS using new applied computing approaches. | en_GB |
