The comparison of different approaches for information sharing and management is relevant in the design and operation of supply chains. This comparison allows one to identify gains in service level and to estimate costs as a result of increased information exchange or increased inventory levels. This article discusses distributed and centralized management approaches and defines a distributed simulation environment designed specifically to represent supply chains, whose main advantage is the discrete time evolution of the simulation. An application is used to demonstrate the environment's resources and to evaluate the gains obtained through different information distribution and management policies.
supply chain; distributed simulation; management policies; cooperative enterprise; business management
