Abstract:

Development of a logistics strategy is one of the most important long-term decisions of each organization. This concerns mainly manufacturing and trading enterprises. It is very important activity for the organization's customers and its market position. The development of logistics strategy requires consideration of a number of factors, internal and external nature. Some of these factors has a stochastic nature, and part of them are caused by the poorly predictable actions of competitors.

Implementation of a strategy more and more depends on the IT systems, not the people. These systems plan, procure, sell or set prices and margins. They also record and determine the actual performance of the enterprise. The development or selection of a strategy is one problem. But its verification in many different, possible situations is another.

The paper presents the concept of using a simulation decision games to verify the logistics strategies of companies. The game involve human teams that generate decisions. These decisions are using by a simulation model of a company and market to determine the consequences of those decisions.

Verification of a logistics strategy lies in the fact that one of the teams implement the decisions of the test strategy consistent with it. The other teams implement their own strategies and simulate other market players. Competition is carried out repeatedly, delegating roles of different teams to the team performing the test strategy. Modifying the parameters of the model we can verify the results of companies in a variety of market conditions.

To perform such experiments we developed an implementation of a simulation games platform, using mathematical models and computer systems representing enterprise’s market and the research methodology. One element of the methodology is a set of indicators to assess the quality of test strategies and compare different strategies to each other.

An example of using the proposed method as an illustration of its advantages is presented in this paper. It includes the disadvantages as well indicate how to reduce their impact on the final results.

Keywords:

Simulation, Game, Logistics.