An Agent Simulation Model for the Qu´ ebec Forest Supply Chain Thierry Moyaux 1 , Brahim Chaib-draa 1 , and Sophie D’Amours 2 1 Universit´ e Laval - FOR@C & DAMAS, Pavillon Pouliot D´ epartement d’Informatique et de G´ enie Logiciel Qu´ ebec City G1K 7P4 (Qu´ ebec, Canada) {moyaux, chaib}@iad.ift.ulaval.ca http://damas.ift.ulaval.ca 2 Universit´ e Laval - FOR@C, Pavillon Pouliot D´ epartement de G´ enie M´ ecanique Qu´ ebec City G1K 7P4 (Qu´ ebec, Canada) Sophie.DAmours@forac.ulaval.ca http://www.forac.ulaval.ca Abstract. A supply chain is a network of companies producing and dis- tributing products to end-consumers. The Qu´ ebec Wood Supply Game (QWSG) is a board game designed to teach supply chain dynamics. The QWSG provides the agent model for every company in our simulation. The goal of this paper is to introduce this simulation model. For this pur- pose, we first outline the QWSG, and then describe with mathematical equations each company in our simulation. Finally, three examples illus- trate the use of our simulation to study collaboration in supply chains. More precisely, we study incentives for collaboration at both the supply chain and company level. 1 Introduction Sterman (1989)’s Beer Game is a board-game designed to teach supply chain dynamics, and in particular, a problem called the bullwhip effect which is the amplification of order variability in supply chains (a supply chain is the net- work of companies producing and distributing products to end-customers). The Qu´ ebec Wood Supply Game (QWSG) is an adaptation of the Beer Game to the Qu´ ebec forest industry. Precisely, the QWSG has a diverging material flow structure, while the Beer Game has a straight one. This diverging flow begins at the output of the Sawmill, because this company has two clients, while all other companies only have one client, as illustrated by Figure 1. This diverging flow forces us to adapt the standard company model for the Sawmill. In fact, all companies have the same model as in the Beer Game, except the Sawmill which is modelled as two subcompanies sharing some parts, e.g., incoming transport. The QWSG is introduced in Section 2. Kimbrough et al. (2002) replace human players by intelligent agents in the Beer Game. This modelization approach is interesting, because intelligent agents M. Klusch et al. (Eds.): CIA 2004, LNAI 3191, pp. 226–241, 2004. c  Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004