Simulating Physical Internet Enabled Distribution Webs

What if instead of packing products in pallets and boxes of different size, shapes and materials, they are packed in ‎smart, standardized, and modular containers? What if these containers are the only unit loads dealt with by ‎transportation systems and logistics facilities? What if the storage and distribution facilities, regardless of which ‎company they belong to, are open to receive, handle, and store containers from any other company? The Physical ‎Internet suggests that if such a context exists, it enables a Logistics Web that will contribute to address the problem of ‎the economic, environmental, and social inefficiency and unsustainability resulting from the way physical entities are ‎currently moved, handled, stored, supplied, realized and used across the world.‎ In this paper, we report on research aiming to enable the exploration of the potential of such a Logistics Web through ‎simulation based investigation. The research is anchored around a collaborative French-Canada-Switzerland project ‎aiming to assess the potential of altering the French distribution system for fast-moving consumer goods from its cur-‎rent state towards a Physical Internet enabled France-wide open logistics web. This web is notably comprised of an ‎open mobility web and an open distribution web. Specifically, we focus on the design challenges associated with ‎architecting and developing a large-scale agent-based simulator enabling the French Logistics Web experiment. ‎