Synthetic Datasets of different Packaging Strategies from an Order Management Process with Sustainability Indicators

General Description

This repository contains synthetic datasets generated using Discrete-Event Simulation (DES), henceforth referred to as simulation. We considered a process of customer order management [1] used in our previous works, thus using the knowledge extracted from the extensive analysis already done on the data and the identification of the constraints from the process side that affect the business and vice versa. 

Process Description

This process covers registration, payment, packing, and shipping of orders, involving staff from sales, warehousing, and shipment departments. Customers place orders, which are assigned to a particular salesperson for registration and payment processing. A warehouser checks items' stock, reorders if needed, and prepares items for shipment. Packages are created by the warehouser and sent by him and a shipper, but frequently there are policy deviations in loading assistance, which are sent by the shipper himself or with another shipper. Deliveries may fail repeatedly until succeeding. This process model includes six object types: Customer, Order, Item, Product, Package, and Employee; and 11 activities (event types): place order, confirm order, payment reminder, pay order, item out of stock, reorder item, pick item, create package, send package, failed delivery, and package delivered.

Simulation Scenarios

To demonstrate how sustainable business practices can be evaluated by integrating indicators from diverse perspectives (aligned with Industry 5.0) through simulation, we choose to assess the impact of the packaging policies by simulating two distinct packaging strategies:

Scenario 1: Each order is packaged individually, meaning that a package contains only items from a single order.

Scenario 2: Orders from the same customer are consolidated into a single package whenever possible, with a waiting period of up to five days to aggregate multiple orders before shipping.

Simulation Tool

Simulation carried out using SIMIO version 18.269.42091 to replicate the order management process and apply the two packaging scenarios.