Discrete event simulation applied to rail fleet management

Commodity businesses in The Dow Chemical Company rely on large and expensive fleets of railcars to ship their products to market.  In some cases a fleet can be shared by several sites and businesses. Managing such a fleet while balancing the level of empty and full rail cars at each site is a complex problem due to variations in demand, production, inventory targets, transit time, etc.  A Discrete Event Simulation model was developed to represent the operation and management of a shared railcar fleet. This model was used to make decisions that will reduce freight, inventory, and railcar switching costs while maximizing the utilization of the fleet.