A comparison of simulation tools for supply chain management

Abstract: This report provides a comparison of discrete-event simulation tools for supply chain models. We use different simulation tools (Arena and AnyLogic) to analyze and inspect the C14 supply chain management benchmark, as well as, a real-world business supply chain model that is provided by Vantai company in China. In this study, we consider different aspects of these simulation tools (such as, the capability of discrete-event simulation, visualization, simulation efficiency and accuracy, and debugging) to explore their advantages and disadvantages. We hope that our simulation results will have a positive impact on the supply chain management of the companies that provided us with data for this study; furthermore, the comparison results may be useful to developers and researchers in future simulation studies.