MODELLING AND PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF A SUPPLY CHAIN USING TIMED COLOURED PETRI NETS

This paper aims at developing a new methodology to design and manage a Supply Chain (SC) and, at the same time, to evaluate the performance of every stakeholder involved in production chains. The methodology we propose is based on Timed Coloured Petri Nets (TCPNs) and has been applied to a footwear supply chain. The one analyzed in this paper is a production system which consists of a manufactures and suppliers network of services, related to logistics systems that specialize in transport and storage. The model developed, uses TCPNs to represent a supply chain and is represented in the following mode: PN places are the resources, whereas the tokens are jobs and orders of parts, while the colour represents the attributes of the job. These colours are used to encode different data types and values that are attached to tokens. A “coloured token” represents a specific production order or a certain amount of a particular material supplied. The supply chain model, developed in this work, using TCPNs allows individuals and companies to create a compact representation of actions, states and/or events of the modelled system. Another particularity of this network is its structure which allows designers an easy realization of simulators and it can be a very useful tool in order to develop what-if analyses.