Executive Summary
SELIS WP2 aims at the research and development of new business innovation models for Living Labs, which at the same time are driving and enabled by the SELIS infrastructure, i.e. the community nodes and networks. This document describes the intermediate results of in depth model investigations via simulation as carried out in task T2.3 of the SELIS project.
Computer based simulation has traditionally played an important role in research and development of many natural systems. As simulation uses an abstract, often mathematical, model to describe a system, it allows a degree of control over experimental conditions and allows reproducing the system’s behaviour regarding simulation results in a way that is difficult or impossible with a prototype or fielded system. Supply chain simulation has various benefits, such as helping to understand the overall supply chain processes and characteristics by providing graphical output and animations. Simulation models can capture system dynamics including probability distributions on input data and unexpected events. By ‘what-if’ simulation, users can test various alternatives before changing a plan and understand the impact of certain events and conditions and so the risk of changes in planning or in a control process can be minimized. The main goal of the here presented activities is the development and implementation of simulation environments in the context of SELIS European Green Logistics Strategies (EGLS). The term Simulation Environment was coined to describe an individual set of tools, data sources and workflows that is suitable to implement a particular simulation study and is assembled in order to execute possibly many recurrent simulation runs over an arbitrary period of time. Accordingly, there will be a number of such environments within SELIS.