Scalable Enterprise Systems Phase II: Supply Chain Optimization and Protocol Environment (SCOPE) - A Rapid Prototyping and Modeling Tool for Extended Enterprises

这个第二阶段可扩展企业系统项目的目标是开发一个供应链优化和协议环境，该环境模拟供应链中涉及多个独立的、寻求目标的实体随时间的行为。实体将由新的优化模型表示，该模型捕捉关键决策变量和技术约束，同时保留足够的特殊结构以允许高效求解。实体之间的交互将通过协议来描述，这些协议指定实体之间传递什么商品、金钱和信息，实体做出决策的顺序，每个实体如何处理信息以做出决策，以及实体如何对与其计划不符的意外事件做出反应。这一方法将使用户能够代表供应链中各实体之间的一系列不同互动模式，虽然相对于工业惯例有所简化，但应能为许多实际感兴趣的案例提供洞察力。通过专注于政策层面的分析，它为评估高价值供应链机会和评估相关风险提供了足够的粒度，而不受现有建模系统的交易细节的阻碍。如果成功，这个项目将为管理人员提供一个快速制作供应链提案原型的工具，使他们能够评估可能性，而无需实施未经测试的想法或等待竞争对手这样做并冒着失去市场份额的风险。研究人员将被提供一个试验台，用于评估从理论上得出的结果在多大程度上适用于不同的运营模式，这些模式约束了一些最初的假设，并用于试验过于复杂而无法分析处理的供应链合作形式。教育工作者将能够通过改变模型参数并近乎实时地显示结果来与学生一起探索现实案例。

The objective of this Phase II Scalable Enterprise Systems project is to develop a Supply Chain Optimization and Protocol Environment that emulates the behavior of supply chains involving multiple, independent, goal-seeking entities over time. Entities will be represented by novel optimization models that capture the key decision variables and technological constraints, while retaining enough special structure to allow efficient solution. Interactions among entities will be described through protocols that specify what goods, money, and information pass among entities, in what order entities make decisions, how information is processed by each entity to make its decisions, and how entities respond to unforeseen events that do not match their plans. The approach will allow users to represent a range of different modes of interaction among entities in the supply chain, which, although simplified relative to industrial practice, should provide insights into many cases of practical interest. By focusing on the policy level of analysis, it provides sufficient granularity for evaluating high-value supply chain opportunities, and assessing the associated risks, unencumbered by the transactional detail of existing modeling systems. If successful, this project would provide managers with a tool for rapid prototyping of supply chain proposals that would permit them to evaluate possibilities without either implementing an untested idea or waiting for competitors to do it and risking loss of market share. Researchers would be provided a test bed for assessing how well theoretically derived results generalize to different modes of operation that strain some of the original assumptions, and for experimenting with forms of supply chain collaboration too complex for treatment analytically. Educators will be able to explore realistic cases with students by varying model parameters and displaying the results in near real time.