Análise do escoamento da soja brasileira através da simulação a eventos discretos

Abstract

Brazil, since 2013, is the largest exporter of soybean in the world. In 2016, Brazil exported 51.58 million tons of soybeans. This value corresponds to approximately 40% of the quantity exported worldwide. Even with lower production costs, the competitiveness of Brazilian soybean declines when the product get on the Brazilian logistics network, facing challenges to drain the production. This paper aims to present the construction and application of a simulation project to support strategic decisions of the Brazilian soybean logistics through the simulation of discrete events. The paper's contribution is due to the use of simulation of discrete events applied to a logistic system, with a greater level of comprehension studied and the high number of interrelated variables. For the study, Brazil was divided according to its soybean production, which results in 19 producing areas coming from a minimum level of microregions. These regions are the origins of the system. For each source, 20 routes from North to South of the country were designed, destined to the current soybean export ports, by the main transport axes, either constructed or projected. The decision-making process is based on the costs of the routes and the availability of the ports. The final destinations are the ports of Shanghai and Hamburg. The model was validated, and adequately represents the studied system. A number of 39 scenarios were simulated for the system, divided in 13 scenarios per year, considering projections for 2015, 2017 and 2026. Operational analyzes of logistics configuration and comparative analyzes based on actual costs are performed. At the end of the simulations, scenarios 1, 2, 6 and 7 are the alternatives that best reduce the logistic costs of the studied system and that the railroads that lead to the ports of São Francisco do Sul and Ilo (F2 and F4 respectively) are not attractive in the analyzed context.. Scenarios 2, 6 and 7 direct the decision to invest in the Araguaia-Tocantins Hidrovia (HAT) and in railroads linking the cities of Maringá and Cruz Alta to the Ports of Paranaguá and Rio Grande, F1 and F3, respectively.