Case studies

Cardinal Health, a billion-dollar pharmaceutical distribution and logistics firm, manages multiple products from brand name pharmaceuticals and generic drugs to over the counter drugs, health & beauty items and their own private label. They face a multitude of typical distribution warehouse challenges that are further complicated by the nature of pharmaceutical products. Brian Heath, Director of Advanced Analytics at Cardinal Health, and an experienced user of AnyLogic software, employed agent based modeling to solve various business problems, saving Cardinal Health over $3 Million annually.

Pfizer, one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, asked Fair Dynamics, in collaboration with Health Services Consulting Corporation, to develop a platform that would help the company’s researchers test a new drug for patients with painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy. The platform would be based on previous clinical studies and act as a decision support tool, which could assess a patient’s personal parameters, prescribe drug dosage, and predict possible outcomes.

The port of Le Havre, France, needed support for construction of new multimodal terminal. The issue that required simulation was supporting containers transfer between rail trains/river barges and other existing terminals, which transferred these containers to and from sea transport.

Canada is the third largest country to have oil reserves. However, most of the oil is in oil sand – the mixture of sand, oil, and water – which has to be heated up with steam to emit the oil. It is costly to maintain such a distribution system, and outages may lead to disruptions in steam injection and oil production. Stream Systems company applied AnyLogic simulation modeling to optimize expenditures and capture production lags.

Amazon developed an approach to transportation network optimization for the customer’s seamless online shopping experience. Discover all the steps, from analyzing yard risks to developing complex traffic flow models to minimize delays and enhance customer satisfaction, especially during peak periods. Study the AnyLogic simulation models that drive Amazon's continuous improvement, saving time and resources.

Kuehne+Nagel, a leading global provider of logistics solutions, was involved in planning a new warehouse for one of their clients. The warehouse would process 13K order lines or 750 picking cartons per day. The project included the development of the best algorithm for multi-order picking. It was planned that the orders in the warehouse would be served by workers with trolleys (or fangos). Workers with trolleys would pick the goods and put them in cartons by order.

Alstom is a global leader in the transportation sector. The company offers trains, signaling, maintenance services, as well as integrated transport systems. Among Alstom’s products are the TGV and Eurostar high-speed trains. The company has 105 sites with more than 34,000 employees worldwide. Its net income is €475 mln. Alstom considers innovation to be crucial in meeting the mobility challenges of the future. Together, with SimPlan, they agreed on developing a digital decision support system for train fleet maintenance management.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) was the world’s sixth largest pharmaceutical company in 2014. The company was launching a new vaccine product on a new market that needed a distribution network different from what they had before. Therefore, the company needed to design a new supply chain and align manufacturing processes with it.

How DHL optimized warehouse order picking and improved efficiency. Analysis using simulation-based modeling increased picking speed and reducing order completion times. The tool integrates with warehouse management systems.

The Port of Long Beach, California, planned to invest up to $1 billion dollars in its Pier B Yard rail facility. TranSystems, with over 25 years of experience in the transport and supply chain space, worked with the port to quantify system requirements to meet capacity goals and to gain stakeholder consensus. Modeling the rail system of the port was necessary to demonstrate to the stakeholders the required changes.