Development of a Transportation Network Model for Complex Economic and Infrastructure Simulations

The intent of this effort is to add a transport network to an agent-based economic simulation model, thereby increasing the fidelity of the economic results reported. The majority of existing agent-based work regarding transportation infrastructures deals with traffic management and urban planning. However, little work has been done in modeling the transport system as a basic infrastructure dependency for an agent-based representation of the economy. In an agent-based modeling environment the transportation component derives its demand from the activities of the agents as they buy and sell goods which require transportation services. The Network Shipper agent was added to allow transportation based on the existing U.S. interstate highway system. The agent determines the shortest path between a buyer and seller and estimates a time of arrival. To represent the dynamic nature of a highway system capacity and speed constraints are imposed on the network. The transportation network was then tested using data for the US milk supply chain. The strongest result of this work is the demonstration that inventory levels in a supply chain must buffer the delivery time uncertainty created when rigorous pursuit of minimum cost supply creates chum in the set of preferred suppliers for a firm. The current geographic distribution of supply and demand, along with variations in the effective time-dependent throughput capacity of the transportation network across the country, creates differential regional sensitivities. In particular, the North Atlantic region is most susceptible to this condition, and as a consequence experiences almost twice the price fluctuation of the South Atlantic region for cheese, despite having half the average supply distance of the south

An agent-based dynamic information network for supply chain management

One of the main research issues in supply chain management is to improve the global efficiency of supply chains. However, the improvement efforts often fail because supply chains are complex, are subject to frequent changes, and collaboration and information sharing in the supply chains are often infeasible. This paper presents a practical collaboration framework for supply chain management wherein multi-agent systems form dynamic information networks and coordinate their production and order planning according to synchronized estimation of market demands. In the framework, agents employ an iterative relaxation contract net protocol to find the most desirable suppliers by using data envelopment analysis. Furthermore, the chain of buyers and suppliers, from the end markets to raw material suppliers, form dynamic information networks for synchronized planning. This paper presents an agent-based dynamic information network for supply chain management and discusses the associated pros and cons

Research Directions in Information Systems for Humanitarian Logistics

This article systematically reviews the literature on using IT (Information Technology) in humanitarian logistics focusing on disaster relief operations. We first discuss problems in humanitarian relief logistics. We then identify the stage and disaster type for each article as well as the article’s research methodology and research contribution. Finally, we identify potential future research directions

Modular HLA RTI services: The GRIDS approach

The Generic Runtime Infrastructure for Distributed Simulation (GRIDS) has been developed to investigate modularity issues in distributed simulation. It could be argued that although the HLA RTI is a widespread solution to distributed simulation, it cannot include all possible services. This paper investigates an approach to extending the distributed simulation services available in the HLA RTI. One example of this is bridging support for HLA/DIS legacy integration. This paper therefore presents GRIDS, how GRIDS can be used to provide modular service support for the HLA RTI, and a case study on legacy integration to demonstrate our approach

The Digitalisation of African Agriculture Report 2018-2019

An inclusive, digitally-enabled agricultural transformation could help achieve meaningful livelihood improvements for Africa’s smallholder farmers and pastoralists. It could drive greater engagement in agriculture from women and youth and create employment opportunities along the value chain. At CTA we staked a claim on this power of digitalisation to more systematically transform agriculture early on. Digitalisation, focusing on not individual ICTs but the application of these technologies to entire value chains, is a theme that cuts across all of our work. In youth entrepreneurship, we are fostering a new breed of young ICT ‘agripreneurs’. In climate-smart agriculture multiple projects provide information that can help towards building resilience for smallholder farmers. And in women empowerment we are supporting digital platforms to drive greater inclusion for women entrepreneurs in agricultural value chains

Distributed supply chain simulation in GRIDS

Amongst the majority of work done in supply chain simulation, papers have emerged that examine the area of model distribution. The executions of simulations on distributed hosts as a coupled model require both coordination and facilitating infrastructure. A distributed environment, the Generic Runtime Infrastructure for Distributed Simulation (GRIDS) is suggested to provide the bonding requirements for such a model. The advantages of transparently connecting the distributed components of a supply chain simulation allow the construction of a conceptual simulation while releasing the modeler from the complexities of the underlying network. The infrastructure presented demonstrates scalability without losing flexibility for future extensions based on open industry standard