TU378 Supply Chain Simulation and Business Process Modelling CA1 2026: African Supply Chain Process Research Paper | TU Dublin

CA1 for TU378 asks you to follow one real product or commodity along an African supply chain, from a defined origin to a defined destination, and explain how the design of that business process shapes its speed and performance. You map the physical network and the AS-IS process, analyse bottlenecks such as waiting, handoffs and capacity, and finish by listing the data a simulation model would need.

1. Purpose

Distance and volume alone provide limited insight into how a logistics system actually operates. Two supply chains may move similar products over similar distances but have very different performance because of their process design, activities, resources, interfaces, waiting points and operating conditions. This assessment requires you to investigate a real logistics process and use business process design and mapping to understand what actually happens as a product moves through a supply chain.

2. Assessment Task

Select a real product or commodity movement involving an African supply chain, with a clearly defined origin and destination on the continent. Produce a research paper addressing:

How does the design of the business process influence the movement and performance of the selected product between origin and destination?

Your investigation should combine appropriate academic and secondary research with business process analysis and mapping.

3. Requirements

A. Define and research the process

Establish an appropriate process boundary and investigate how the selected product actually moves through the supply chain. Identify the significant actors, activities, locations, resources, transport stages and interfaces involved. Research the factors that help explain why the process operates in its current form, such as geography, infrastructure, network configuration, institutional arrangements, trade relationships or historical development, and determine their significance from the evidence rather than assume them in advance.

B. Map the process

Use appropriate business process design and mapping techniques to develop an evidence-based representation of the AS-IS process. Your paper should include:

• a concise representation of the physical supply-chain/network; and
• a business-process map showing the significant activities, sequence, actors/resources, flows, interfaces, decision points and waiting points relevant to your analysis.

The objective is not graphical sophistication or an exhaustive process model; the maps should make the process visible and support your analysis.

C. Analyse the process design

Use your research and process map to critically examine how the design of the process influences performance. Identify the most significant features of the process architecture and explain their consequences, for example cycle time, waiting, handoffs, capacity, variability, transportation, handling, information flows or other process constraints. Show where these issues occur within the process and why they matter, rather than giving a generic discussion of supply-chain challenges. Conclude by identifying the key process data that would be required to develop a quantitative simulation of the process.

4. Research and Evidence

This is primarily a research paper supported by process modelling. Use academic literature and credible secondary sources such as government agencies, international organisations, transport and port authorities, industry bodies and company sources. Where reliable information is unavailable, identify the limitation rather than presenting assumptions as facts. The aim is a defensible abstraction of a real process that supports critical analysis.

5. Generative AI – AIAS Level 2

• Green: brainstorm products and routes, develop research questions and search terms, plan the research and paper structure.
• Amber: explore possible process stages, explanations, routes or sources; all outputs must be independently researched and verified (AI output is not evidence).
• Red: generating sections of the paper, critical analysis or conclusions, or using fabricated or unverified AI references, facts or data.

Include a short AI Planning Statement as an appendix stating which GenAI tools you used, how, and how AI-assisted ideas were verified.

6. Submission

Submit a 3,000-word research paper (±10%) through Brightspace. The word count excludes references, figures/maps, tables and appendices. The network representation and process map should appear within the paper where they support the analysis.