Multi-agent control of periodic-review supply chain

The bullwhip effect is one of the most important reasons for reducing the performance of the supply chain (SC) and imposes many costs on the industry. Various reasons cause the bullwhip effect (BWE), the most important of which are improper classification of orders or Periodic Reviews. This paper first proposed the state space model of a supply chain with a periodic review policy. We indicated that by categorizing and timing orders periodically with the concepts of supply chain management, we reach a three-agent structure with a T-order (cycle of orders). The interaction of the agents in this model has a spanning tree, so it was shown that the three-agent approach with T-order can efficiently send optimal periodic orders to regulate and stabilize demand fluctuations. The agents moved to an agreed inventory level by maintaining a certain distance from their inventory with other agents to adjust the BWE (an example of swarming in multi-agent control). Due to the existence of storage costs and the demand forecasting that the production agent adopts as the leader, a prohibited level of inventory, should be taken into account, and agents should avoid these levels. This problem was solved using the discussion of avoiding obstacles in multi-agent control. Finally, the efficiency of the proposed method was probed by simulating and expressing the equivalence of concepts, such as position, speed, and acceleration with variables of initial inventory, production, and production rate.