Prospective and perspective review in integrated supply chain modelling for the chemical process industry

Abstract

There is a large body of work on modelling and optimisation of the supply chain in the chemical process industry. This review summarises the most recent concepts and structural components constituting the SC. It describes the enlarged scope presently attributed to supply chain management, which departs from classical approaches focused on operations to a more integrated conception that jointly considers necessary decisions from other business functional areas (e.g. corporate finances, new product development, environmental management), as well as captures the complex dynamics characterizing the supply chain management (SCM) problem. Moreover, new perspectives come into focus for enterprise-wide decision-making through the use of ontologies that provide a general model representation for different decision-support levels at different time and space scales.