Development of a simulation model of grain delivery in global supply chains

The main export shipments of grain to Ukraine are carried out through commercial seaports of the Black Sea, while the complex and multiphase transportation process creates delays and leads to additional costs at the points of connection of various types of transport. The purpose of the study was the process of transporting grain cargo for export through commercial seaports. Ukraine is a developed agricultural country that produces a significant share of the world’s grain volume, most of which is exported. The optimisation simulation model of multimodal grain cargo transportation developed in the study, in contrast to the existing ones, is a multiphase process with many initial parameters, subsystems, and technological elements that adequately reflect all components of the technological process of organising transportation by road, rail, and sea, and helps to optimise these processes. The model consists of several transport and technological subsystems, each of which corresponds to the process of grain transportation by road, rail, or water. The minimum total duration of cargo transportation from the place of origin to the moment of sending grain cargo for export by sea was chosen as the optimal criterion. To establish the minimum required number of replications and the minimum required model time, a series of experiments were performed, where the key and systematic modelling measurement parameter is the total time of grain delivery by land, from the point of origin to the sea trade terminal. As a result of modelling, the optimal number of rolling stock of different types of transport and the transportation time for each phase of the process were determined. Logistics operators of the agro-industrial sector can apply the model to improve grain delivery routes and schemes, evaluate and improve technological parameters, and minimise transportation time and costs