Supply Chain Optimization via Generative Simulation and Iterative Decision Policies
This work addresses the problem of enhancing responsiveness and economic efficiency in supply chain transportation for logistics and operations managers, representing an incremental advancement through a novel integrated framework.
The paper tackled supply chain transportation optimization by proposing the Sim-to-Dec framework, which combines generative simulation and iterative decision policies, resulting in significant improvements in timely delivery rates and profit as demonstrated on three real-world datasets.
High responsiveness and economic efficiency are critical objectives in supply chain transportation, both of which are influenced by strategic decisions on shipping mode. An integrated framework combining an efficient simulator with an intelligent decision-making algorithm can provide an observable, low-risk environment for transportation strategy design. An ideal simulation-decision framework must (1) generalize effectively across various settings, (2) reflect fine-grained transportation dynamics, (3) integrate historical experience with predictive insights, and (4) maintain tight integration between simulation feedback and policy refinement. We propose Sim-to-Dec framework to satisfy these requirements. Specifically, Sim-to-Dec consists of a generative simulation module, which leverages autoregressive modeling to simulate continuous state changes, reducing dependence on handcrafted domain-specific rules and enhancing robustness against data fluctuations; and a history-future dual-aware decision model, refined iteratively through end-to-end optimization with simulator interactions. Extensive experiments conducted on three real-world datasets demonstrate that Sim-to-Dec significantly improves timely delivery rates and profit.