DISTRIBUTED OPERATIONS PLANNING IN THE SOFTWOOD LUMBER SUPPLY CHAIN: MODELS AND COORDINATION

Agent-based technology provides a natural approach to model supply chain networks. Each production unit, represented by an agent, is responsible for planning its operations and communicates with other units for coordination purposes. In this paper, we study a softwood lumber supply chain made up of three production units (the sawing unit, the drying unit and the finishing unit). We define the local problems and propose agent-specific mathematical models to plan and schedule operations. Then, in order to coordinate these plans between the three agents, we propose different coordination mechanisms. Incorporating these developments, we show how an agent-based simulation tool can be used to integrate planning models and evaluate different coordination mechanisms.