A pilot study on eliciting human operations decision in purchasing and measuring their impact on supply chain efficiency

We developed a specialised tool for supply chain simulation aimed at collecting data such as information consultations and decision-making actions of purchasing operations. The methodology is composed of sub-processes, such as data log file generation, data parsing and information generation, behaviour profile identification through clustering, and the analysis of supply performance regarding each category of decision-making behaviour. Through experimentation with industrial purchasing agents, we validated the effectiveness of the approach and demonstrated how to achieve a quantitative analysis of decision-making behaviour and its impact on supply performance.