A methodology for modeling inter-company supply chains and for evaluating a method of integrated product and process documentation

Due to the increasing complexity in products and in the resulting enterprise processes, new concepts for process optimization are necessary. One innovative concept, resulting from the requirements of the automotive industry, is the method of an integrated product and process documentation. In order to evaluate the benefits of an inter-company use of this documentation approach a simulation-based decision support system using a modular modeling concept for intra- and inter-company process chains has been developed. This concept is based on the Supply Chain Operations Reference-model (SCOR-model). The developed concept allows the evaluation of different configurations of process chains with different sets of parameters describing realistic production and inventory processes. Focused on supply chains with high variant and complex products within the automotive industry first scenarios have been built up and the benefits of this integrated documentation approach can be visualized. This approach is the future basis for optimization methods coming from control theory.