IJAM, Volume 26, No. 3 (2013)

Abstract. A mathematical model describing supply chain on a network is introduced. Due to inventories and various properties of the suppliers, it is not realistic to choose the velocity in supply chain to be constant in every problem. So the constitutive relationships for supply chain velocity are presented and combined with the non-smooth flux function of supply chain. Various examples relevant to real applications are presented through the characteristics approach and verified numerically. Numerical experiments are performed in a supply chain with three nodes. WIP in each node, flux and density of supply chain are analyzed.