Self-organisation evolution of supply networks

It is not clear as to how Supply Networks (SNs) grows up, adapts and evolves with the dynamic environment. This paper develops the self-organisation evolution model based on fitness landscape theory, and simulates it using a multiagent technology. It demonstrates the self-organisation evolution of SN. The environment and firm's internal mechanism are the origins of SN evolution. An SN emerges from the dynamic interaction of the firms to fulfil the stochastic demand generated from the environment. The evolution of an SN is self-reinforcing, path-dependent and highly sensitive to the initial conditions, which may lead to multiple equilibrium state and chaos. The evolution result is non-deterministic and cannot be predicted precisely.