Towards an integrated description of product, process and supply chain

This paper draws upon learning from the aerospace, automotive and retail sectors to provide a framework for the modelling and simulation of supply chains, the processes that occur within them and the products that flow dong them. The framework allows an integrated description of products and processes in a supply chain. Such a description could be used to support analyses and simulations that, take account of the supply chain and its constituent products and processes. The framework itself is based on a data model that uses a single pattern for the representation of structured data. This pattern is used three times: for supply chain, process and product. The descriptive capability of the framework is demonstrated through a case study that is taken from the packaging industry.