Supply chain configuration towards customization: A comparison between small and large series production

This paper describes an approach to evaluate how a supply network is ready for customization: starting from historical data collected from the focal firm, a configuration model of supply chain based on discrete-event simulation is created to analyse the network structure of a company and to evaluate how it can perform if the production switch from large to small series production. The simulation approach relies on experimentation through executable models which allows to create what-if scenarios. This type of approach offers several advantages: it offers a realistic observation of the supply chain behaviour and allow an analysis of the supply chain dynamics. It provides an observation of the behaviour of the network over time, to understand the organizational decision-making process, analyse the interdependencies between the actors of the chain and analyse the consistency between the coordination modes and the decisional policies. The model is then applied to a case study in the fashion sector.