Arena Simulation Software in Supply Chain

Improve Supply Chains by Evaluating Routes, Locations and Availability

Trucks, ships, and other supply chain methods lined up.

Arena has a proven track record of enabling companies to model and evaluate everything from global supply chains to warehouses. Arena’s flowchart modeling methodology makes it easy to define and communicate the intricacies of a complex supply chain.

Supply chains are complex and can involve many interdependent facilities, people, and equipment delivering products or services to multiple locations. Managing an efficient supply chain requires integrating supply and demand management by coordinating sourcing, procurement, conversion of raw materials into finished product, and logistics.

Arena’s wide-ranging capabilities make it a great solution for supply chain optimization.

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This video demonstrates a Supply Chain in action in facilities throughout the US using Arena Simulation Software.

What is Supply Chain Optimization?

Supply chain optimization is a computer model of the supply chain that incorporates system interactions, resource requirements and inherent system variability to provide a realistic simulation of the supply chain. This model can be used to test, validate and optimize supply chain performance. The result is companies have a cost-effective means of making the supply chain for their goods and services more efficient. Through these models, the following can be determined:

Impact of changing sourcing and manufacturing locations on cost, capacity, and ability to meet customer demand
Resource requirements to meet delivery schedules
Effect of variation in delivery times and quantities on system operation
Impact of currency exchange rates, duty, VAT, and other costs

Effective optimization requires simulation, and that’s where Arena can help.

Arena has extensive experience helping companies improve their operations, and can easily handle the volume of information needed to measure performance and optimize the largest supply chain networks. Arena allows supply chain professionals to create models that can be tested and adjusted quickly, which lowers cost, saves time, and decreases the risk often associated with the standard trial-and-error approach.

Features and Capabilities

Easy-to-Build Supply Chain Modeling

Build a supply chain model in a fast, intuitive and easy-to-learn manner
Drag and drop elements and structures allow you build simulations and visualize results
Engaging 2D and 3D animation capabilities that do not require programming assistance

Dashboards for Supply Chain Optimization

Built-in dynamic dashboards provide the model analysis you need to facilitate supply chain optimization
Build customized displays of the model information to enable you to better understand what is happening in your process

Common Capabilities

JIT operations
Evaluate shipping and transportation alternatives
Determine the best location for warehousing or other facilities
Evaluate dispatching rules
Determine facility size requirements
Identify bottlenecks in the supply chain
Quantify risks in the supply chain
Determine warehouse capacity requirements
Evaluate warehouse picking strategies
Determine labor requirements

Warehouse Simulation Software

Whether you are still trying to determine the location and size of your warehouse, or you need to improve efficiencies and reduce costs at your existing facility, simulation can help.

What is Warehouse Simulation?

Warehouse simulation is a computer-based model of warehouse operations and workflows that can be used to validate, test and improve the performance of your warehouses. Simulations in the virtual world can be used to predict and improve actual performance quickly, cheaply and with lower risk than tests in the real-world. These models enable companies to test the impact of “what if” adjustments prior to selecting or changing any of the following:

Geographical location of the warehouse
Facility size for capacity requirements, with the ability to scale
Floor layout, product organization, and picking strategy to increase throughpu
Labor requirements for each shift and for complex processes
Sharing or adding equipment and other resources
Planning for increased volume

Arena warehouse simulation software is the comprehensive tool to evaluate your warehouse. Not only can you simulate multiple variations within specific processes to determine if equipment or labor are causing the bottleneck, you can also test how efficiencies break down when different processes like picking and palletizing interact.

With no programming experience, you can drag and drop modules into your simulation to model your warehouse, and use Arena’s 2D or 3D visualization tools to view your changes. Models can be run multiple times with different variables to provide information on how to improve processes.