Decision Making In Logistics: A Chaos Theory Based Analysis

Logistics in general is a complex system. In this paper we investigate the existence of chaos In logistics systems. Such an Investigation Is necessary to use appropriate and correct methods for further analysis, as linear systems techniques will not be useful. If a system exhibits chaos, decision-making should consider the system characterization parameters from a chaos theory perspective. In this paper, we consider a non-preemptive queuing model and its extensions to the logistics domain. A prototypical supply chain example is used and the resulting behavior is characterized. At certain Input values the behavior of the logistics system exhibits chaos. This Information is useful for further analysis for prediction and control. The working prototype is implemented in the DARPA Couggar agent architecture.