An agent-based distributed computational experiment framework for virtual supply chain network development

•An agent-based distributed computational experiment framework for virtual supply chain networks.•An approach for agent-based computational experiment modeling based on material flow, information flow and time flow.•A computational experiment architecture and an implementation architecture of the proposed framework.•Coordination mechanisms among agents and consistency check methods for computational experiment models.

This paper focuses on research on virtual supply chain networks instead of real supply chain networks by making use of agent technology and computational experiment method. However, the recent research is inefficient in computational experiment modeling and lack of a related methodological framework. This paper proposes an agent-based distributed computational experiment framework with in-depth study of material flow, information flow and time flow modeling in supply chain networks. In this framework, a matrix-based formal representation method for material flow, a task-centered representation method for information flow and an agent-based time synchronization mechanism for time flow are proposed to aid building a high quality computational experiment model for a multi-layer supply chain network. In order to conduct the model, a computational experiment architecture for virtual supply chain networks is proposed. In this architecture, coordination mechanisms among agents based on material flow, information flow and time flow as well as consistency check methods for computational experiment models are discussed. Finally, an implementation architecture of the framework is given and a case of virtual supply chain network is developed to illustrate the application of the framework. The computational experiment results of the case show that the proposed framework, not only feasible but correct, has sound advantages in virtual supply chain network development, computational experiment modeling and implementation.