A SIMULATION-BASED DECISION-MAKING FRAMEWORK FOR IT INFRASTRUCTURE SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT IN NIGERIA

There are several decision-…challenges for IT infrastructure supply chain management in emerging
economies that deterministic models can't cater for. With high infrastructure deficit, fluctuating FX rates, and
system uncertainties characteristic of Nigeria, the decision support framework needs to incorporate models for
complexity. This paper presents an integrated simulation-based decision-making framework by integrating
Discrete-Event Simulation (DES), Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) and Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) in three
main decision domains: procurement planning under FX volatility, inventory positioning across heterogeneous
power zones and last-mile network deployment. Anchored on the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE)
framework and resilience engineering, the modular framework is customized for Nigerian constraints but also
applicable to other low-resource contexts. Simulation-based experiments on realistic Nigerian IT procurement
and logistics data validate the framework [9]. It is found that the simulation-based approach outperforms a
heuristic baseline in total landed cost variation (23–28% reduction, 95% CI: 24.31.8%), service level
improvement (31–40% increase, 95% CI: 35.22.4%) and cumulative visibility benefit increase (27–35%, 95%
CI: 30.12.1%). Recommendations and future research directions are also provided.