A Formal Modeling Approach for Supply Chain Event Management.pdf

A Formal Modeling Approach for Supply Chain Event Management Emily (Rong) Liu and Akhil Kumar Wil van der Aalst Smeal College of Business Faculty of Technology Management Penn State University Eindhoven Technical University University Park, PA 16802, USA Eindhoven, Netherlands {rull110,akhilkumar}@psu.edu w.m.p.v.d.aalst@tm.tue.nl Abstract: As supply chains become more dynamic it is important to be able to model them formally as business processes. In particular, there is a need for a sense and respond capability to react to events in a real-time manner. In this paper, we propose time Petri nets as a formalism for doing so. Hence, we describe seven basic patterns that are used to capture modeling concepts that arise commonly in supply chains. Next, we show how to combine these patterns to build a complete Petri net and analyze it using reachability analysis, dependency graphs and simulation. Keywords: Supply Chain Event Management, Petri nets, time Petri nets, colored Petri nets, event causality, dependency graph, reachability analysis. 1. Introduction The pressures of global competition and the need for extensive inter-organizational collaboration are forcing companies to streamline their supply chains and make them agile, flexible and responsive. Consequently, a supply chain must be able to handle large numbers of events, both expected and unexpected. The unexpected events, also called exceptions, typically arise because there is usually a gap between supply chain planning and execution [4]. Supply chain planning sets a target that can be achieved based on a given set of constraints at a given time. In a dynamic supply chain environment, the constraints are always changing, so exceptions or deviations from plans occur almost regularly. Examples of exceptions are inaccurate forecast, product out-of-stock, shipment delayed etc., and they are costly. Moreover, events tend to propagate in collaborative supply chains across partne