MOFIS: New Conceptual Modeling Framework for Handling Value Adding Networks Complexity

Competition leads value adding networks to increase their agility in order to acquire or maintain their market shares. To do so, managers must be able to propose and to assess several improvement scenarios in order to offer the best service level to the markets at minimum cost. As value adding networks often involve several actors evolving in a non-steady environment, simulation is one of the best approaches to catch the complexity of these systems. However, existing simulation tools are often criticized for their opacity and their limited reusability. As an answer to these limitations, we propose a new framework that lifts the veil on decision making in simulation by allowing the integration and the edition of decision making patterns with varying levels of complexity. The framework allows as well the separation and the visualization of both material, information and control flows.