Operational policies of the milk-soft cheese supply chain of the Guayana region, Venezuela

Abstract

In order to determine the impact caused by demand variations in the supply chain, and how capacity, inventory, process or workforce operational policies can mitigate this impact, and help management achieve a competitive chain in order delivery, a Discrete Events Simulation Model was developed to observe the behavior of the queues and a Simulation Models of Continuous Processes or Systems Dynamics, to test operational policies. Managing a Supply Chain represents an important challenge, especially considering the need to make it competitive, consequently, having a balanced supply chain configured allows better understanding the existing relationships between the operational policies and the underlying structure, and their link with the behavior dynamic system without creating incompatibilities. It was demonstrated in this study that the use of operational policies in the Supply Chains integrated by PyMES as tools to improve competitiveness in the delivery of orders and the convenience of applying these operational policies in a combined manner as a way to avoid imbalances in the system, such as: Accelerated growth in the level of pending orders that causes a deterioration in the credibility of the chain and consequently a decrease in orders. With this demonstration, one of the most important contributions of this work was achieved: Contribute to reduce the uncertainty in the decision making of the chain administrator, because it can quickly analyze which combination of operational policies is better is more effective in the face of a change on demand and before putting it into practice.