Using enhanced IDEF-SIM (EnIS) technique to model sustainable supply chains (SSCs) (Part I)

Abstract

A Sustainable Supply Chain (SSC) is required to consider Environmental, Economic and Societal needs equally and in tandem. SSCs are super systems that is made up of multiple interconnected forward and reverse business processes which relays and relies on resources and information from one another. There are only a few techniques that are able to model such complex relationship, and among the best is the IDEF family of techniques. There are also variations to these core techniques which specifically model End-of-Life Vehicle (ELV) recovery, and there is also a hybrid technique which allows a single IDEF technique is used for modeling, instead of using a number of complementing techniques which is the norm. In this study, these two variation techniques are merged and further refined to allow it to model sustainability elements which was missing in any core technique or its variation. This proposed technique is called Enhanced IDEFSIM (EnIS) and will provide a novel way to model and understand the infrastructure of complete SSCs.