Supply chain analysis model based on system dynamics approach: A case of Iranian bicycle manufacturer

Increasing competition in international marketplaces is motivating companies to creating value to their customers. The main objective for the case company is to lucrative attendance in the markets of Asia and South America but at the same time there are many challenges to face. One of these challenges that the case company faces is to balance the variable demand with an inflexible supply. This paper present several factors that affect the design of supply chain under study and then proposes a modeling framework that is used to simulate the operation of this supply chain. The modeling framework presented in this paper is based on System Dynamics approach and its effort has focused on describing the different options for an appropriate supply chain. The modeling and simulations are done with the System dynamics software Vensim that provides a graphical interface to present the causal relationships between variables.