Conceptual Framework for Knowledge Management Support in Logistics and Supply Chain Simulation

This paper relates logistics and supply chain modeling and simulation to knowledge flow analysis and knowledge management methodology. Knowledge gained in the course of a simulation project quite often remains in the heads of the people involved in the project. It is not sufficiently externalized because documentation tasks are time-consuming, seen as an add-on to the real problem-solving process and poorly supported. As a result, project-specific knowledge about assumptions, decisions, modeling philosophy, implementation, experiments and results is not kept but lost, even if it is retained by the people involved. As a contribution to overcoming this problem, logistics simulation knowledge is identified and processes of knowledge sharing, creation and acquisition in the course of a logistics simulation project are analyzed. Although closely related to logistics and supply chain simulation, the methods proposed are easily adapted to other application areas of modeling and simulation - and should be applied to them as well