Title: Modelling customer demand in forest products industry supply chains: a review of the literature

Authors: Saba Vahid, Thomas Maness

Addresses: Faculty of Forestry, Department of Forest Resources Management, University of British Columbia, 2424 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T1Z4, Canada. ' Forest Engineering, Resources and Management, College of Forestry, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331-5706, USA

Abstract: To remain competitive in today|s business environment, forest products manufacturing enterprises can greatly benefit from the concept of Supply Chain Management (SCM). Modelling the supply chain is the first step towards this goal. Since all business activities in a supply chain are carried out to satisfy the end-customer|s demand, it is vital to correctly model the demand for the final products or services. This paper provides a review and classification of existing approaches for modelling the end-customer demand in supply chains. It then identifies the promising approaches for use in the context of forest products industry.

Keywords: SCM; supply chain modelling; supply chain management; demand modelling; customer demand; forest products industry; stochastic demand; deterministic demand; simulation; optimisation; agent-based models; agent-based systems; multi-agent systems; MAS; literature review.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSPM.2010.036015

International Journal of Simulation and Process Modelling, 2010 Vol.6 No.2, pp.103 - 114

Received: 04 Mar 2009
Accepted: 05 Dec 2009
Published online: 12 Oct 2010 *

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