An Agent-Based Simulation Approach to Assess the Performance of an Inventory System Used in an Automotive Components Retail Organisation

Effective management of the end-to-end inventory processes used in an automotive components retail organisation is vital to ensure just-in-time product order delivery and improve product sales. Therefore, there is a need to measure the performance of an inventory system used in this organisation towards ensuring continuous inventory process improvement. In light of this, this study developed an agent-based model that could be used to evaluate the performance of an inventory system used in an automotive components retail organisation. In order to achieve this, a system model of the current inventory system used in the organisation was developed using AnyLogic software and parametrized using historical inventory order and processing operating conditions data obtained from the organisation. The result of the inventory system performance revealed that the maximum order fill rate, maximum actual order processing time, maximum sales order processing time, and maximum inventory turnover ratio are 66%, 9.7 days, 13.6 days and 2.1 respectively. The stock checking and stock packaging processes are the bottlenecked operations contributing to late product order service delivery in the automotive components retail organisation.