The Global Performance of a Service Supply Chain: A Simulation-Optimization Under Arena

The service supply chain is a set of partners linked to service activities. It aims to achieve operational efficiency and organizational excellence through the fluid management of different resources and skills. This chain requires different costs and involves several processes. Knowing and evaluating the different costs of a service supply chain will allow to better manage the performance of the supply chain and subsequently improve the overall performance of the service company. We have established a conceptual basis for the different costs of a pharmaceutical distribution company. The proposed model allowed us to synthesize the different costs of a supply chain service. Furthermore, through a simulation-optimization, with Arena simulation, we improved the operating scheme of this service chain. The optimization was carried out according to several scenarios and allowed us to improve three main performance indicators: the average response time per hour, the average response rate and the cycle time per hour.