Analysis of a customer demand driven semiconductor supply chain in a distributed simulation test bed

Effective supply chain management (SCM) enables organizations to be more competitive in the current world of global manufacturing by reducing costs and improving the quality of customer service. Simulation can assist in moving towards these goals by evaluating the feasibility of alternative policies for managing a supply chain. However, simulation of multiple factories within the supply chain, with a high level of granularity in particular, can be very complex and computationally intensive. In this paper, we describe how a distributed simulation test bed enabling very detailed supply chain simulation can be used to study a customer-demand driven semiconductor supply chain.