An Interoperability Model for Collaborative Development of Distributed Supply Chain Simulations

JUAN LEONARDO SARLI

Gotemburgo

Conferencia; Winter Simulation Conference; 2018

Development of a collaborative distributed supply chain simulation implies interoperation of heterogeneous systems. Interoperability among several independent systems requires mutual understanding and meaning of shared data represented in a common structure. These two requirements are always a real challenge. In a High Level Architecture (HLA) based supply chain simulation, the federation object model (FOM) performs as a contract where mutual understanding and shared information are described. However, this contract is usually established manually and then the consistency and completeness cannot be guaranteed. Developing FOM and modifying existing systems to comply with the FOM implies a significant amount of time and effort which reduce the benefits of system reuse. This paper presents a heavy-weighted ontology-based method to construct interoperation models of HLA based supply chain simulation in a human-friendly, efficient, consistent and complete way. Besides, this method provides support to collaboration among several organizations of a supply chain.