A proactive approach to supply chain risk management: Shifting orders among suppliers to mitigate the supply side risks

Globalization, e-trade, advanced technologies and emerging production techniques have increased supply chains’ efficiency and added value. However, despite numerous advantages, these factors make supply chains more fragile and vulnerable to risks. For this reason, companies that perform supply chain risk management gain competitive advantage. In the past, supply chain managers mainly focused on reducing costs; but recently, they have begun to give importance to supply chain continuity and resiliency which have significant impacts on costs as well. Hence, conventional reactive planning has given way to proactive planning in supply chain risk management. In this study, the supply chain risk management process is investigated and a procedure is proposed in the risk mitigation phase. In the first stage of the proposed procedure, an initial procurement plan is obtained via a linear programming model, considering the cost criterion as the first priority. In the second stage, this plan is revised by including the risk criterion into the planning as the second priority. The aim of this procedure that enables proactive planning is to reduce the supply side risks. The model is tested with a hypothetical data set and the cost analysis is performed to evaluate the performance of the procedure. Finally, the whole supply chain risk management process including the proposed procedure is applied to an international automotive company.     

An empirical analysis: Did green supply chain management alleviate the effects of COVID-19?

Supply chain management played a central role during the COVID-19 crisis, as the outbreak of the pandemic disrupted the majority of all global supply chains. This paper tests whether companies that use green supply chain management (GSCM) practices benefited from a buffer effect in the context of COVID-19. Our empirical analysis, conducted on a sample of U.S. companies, shows that GSCM companies experienced less negative abnormal stock returns during the crisis. This result contributes to the literature on financial impact of GSCM, finding that GSCM is perceived as an effective risk management tool and can serve as an effective drug against COVID-19 crisis. Our paper also contributes to the business debate on the role of green supply chains in the post-COVID19 world.     

The sustainable humanitarian supply chain design: agility,adaptability and alignment

The sustainable humanitarian supply chain (SHSC) has been the subject of research and debate over recent years. The aim of the paper is to provide an SHSC definition, propose an SHSC structure and validate it empirically. A unique contribution of the present study is an attempt to delineate humanitarian supply chain (HSC) management from commercial supply chain management and further discuss the HSC from the point of view of sustainability. We identify three important characteristics of a HSC network: agility, adaptability and alignment, and further explore possible linkages using extant literature and interpretive structural modelling (ISM). We further test the constructs using confirmatory factor analysis. In this way we attempt to answer long-pending calls from past researchers to contribute to the existing theories of HSC and identify further research directions based on the limitations of the present study.     

Effect of armed conflicts on humanitarian operations: Total factor productivity and efficiency of rural hospitals

We study an important but widely neglected topic in humanitarian operations: armed conflicts. Specifically, this paper empirically analyzes the effect of armed conflicts on the operational performance of first-layer response organizations. Using as a case study the Colombian conflict we investigate the effect of conflict on public rural hospitals' (i) total factor productivity, (ii) efficiency and (iii) efficiency variability. The panel data set (2007–2011) used in this study includes information at the hospital level for 163 hospitals and qualitative data collected from interviews with medical staff from the Colombian Ministry of Health and hospitals in different conflict zones. Our results indicate that armed conflict has a positive effect on total factor productivity, while it has a negative impact on hospital efficiency, and interestingly that efficiency and total factor productivity both increase in post conflict. Finally, the results show that efficiency variability is higher in peace and post-conflict hospitals and lower in medium and severe-conflict hospitals. These results have operations management implications and opportunities for future research related to sourcing decisions, supply chain and workforce flexibility, behavioral impacts on the workforce, and humanitarian response to conflicts.     

Improving resilience of the healthcare supply chain in a pandemic: Evidence from Europe during the COVID-19 crisis

The severe scarcity of critical medical supplies caused by the COVID-19 pandemic led to considerable procurement challenges in the healthcare supply chain (HCSC). As ensuring the availability of such supplies during disruptions is critical, the debate on how to increase supply chain resilience in healthcare has gained new momentum. We present empirical evidence from a multi-tier case study spanning nine European medical supplies manufacturers and hospital groups. Based on the resource dependence theory, we investigated procurement-related strategies to improve medical supplies availability. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 39 procurement and supply chain management experts and derived seven propositions on buffering and bridging approaches for managing evolving resource dependencies and thereby strengthening supply chain resilience in a pandemic. Overall, we confirm the resource dependence theory's applicability for explaining companies' mitigation measures in a pandemic disruption. We find that bridging measures within the healthcare supply base, such as offering procurement support for suppliers or leveraging long-term buyer-supplier relationships, are more effective for securing medical supplies than buffering measures. Complementing bridging with buffering, such as extended upstream procurement or resource sharing among hospitals, can lead to superior risk mitigation as capacities of the present supplier base may not suffice. Furthermore, we extend the resource dependence theory by showing that the severity of disruptions caused by a pandemic triggers new forms of buffering external to the HCSC. Both traditional and new buffering measures establish novel flows of medical supplies in the HCSC that can enable higher supply security in a pandemic.     

供应链合作伙伴关系研究

供应链合作伙伴关系是影响供应链运作绩效的重要因素,加强供应链合作伙伴关系管理意义重大。本文从建立合作伙伴对整个供应链的益处与风险进行分析,总结了合作伙伴选择的过程和方法,列举了合作伙伴选择时应考虑的影响因素,从产品、交货行为、企业环境评价、信任度、服务等方面进行了详细阐述,并提出了合作伙伴的跟踪管理思想。     

Improving agility and resilience of automotive spares supply chain: The additive manufacturing enabled truck model

The global supply chain disruption by the COVID-19 pandemic is difficult, if not impossible, to estimate as over 94% of the top 1000 fortune companies were badly affected. The need for building resilient supply chains to mitigate the effect of such disruptions is rising rapidly than ever before across the global business spectrum. Building resilience in the automotive spare parts (ASPs) supply chain is critically important as any disruption to automotive spares supply chain will affect the operations of the logistics sector, the backbone of global supply chains. This research work contributes to improving the resilience of the automotive spare parts supply chain by proposing a Viable Supply Chain (VSC) framework design that incorporates Additive Manufacturing (AM) enabled trucks in the automotive spares supply chain network. Based on the proposed model, conceptual case models are developed and tested with proposed AM enabled truck manufacturing closer to end customer. A heuristic approach called shortest time heuristic is also proposed to solve the routing and scheduling of an AM enabled truck to deliver customers’ orders of the spare parts through an online platform. Importantly, the study demonstrate how additive manufacturing can help the ASPs industry to switch from the existing practice of make-to-stock to a more efficient inventory management and cost saving make-to-order model while also achieving resilience and sustainability in by providing a source of spares support for discontinued models of vehicles.     

供应链运作风险影响企业竞争能力的实证分析

以供应链运作风险为切入点,在现有文献研究的基础上,从供应风险、需求风险、制造风险和信息风险四个维度反映供应链运作风险,通过提出相关研究假设构建了供应链运作风险作用于企业竞争能力的关系模型。基于对国内制造企业的调研数据,对模型进行了验证。研究结果表明,供应链运作风险对企业的竞争能力产生了不同程度的影响。     

Sustainable humanitarian supply chain management – exploring new theory

Disaster response operations aim at helping as many victims as possible in the shortest time, with limited consideration of the socio-economic context. During the disaster rehabilitation phase, the perspective needs to broaden and comprehensively take into account the local environment. We propose a framework of sustainable humanitarian supply chain management (SCM) that facilitates such comprehensive performance. We conceptualise the framework by combining literature from the fields of sustainable and humanitarian SCM. We test the framework through an analytic induction process by means of multiple case studies of four relief organisations. Our framework suggests that supply chain design needs to be aligned not only to relief organisations’ enablers, but also to the population's long-term requirements as well as any socio-economic and governmental contingency factors. A good fit between these dimensions leads to sustainable performance. The framework provides an instrument for relief organisations to achieve sustainable performance in the disaster rehabilitation phase.     

Structural drivers of upstream supply chain complexity and the frequency of supply chain disruptions

A great deal of research has focused on supply chain risk management, but the question “Which supply chain characteristics increase the frequency of supply chain disruptions?” has not received much attention from empirical research. This is a relevant question, because firms seek stability in their operations, and therefore managers need to know how the structure of their supply chains affects the occurrence of disruptions. The present study addresses this issue with a specific focus on upstream supply chain (supply-side) disruptions. Drawing on the literature on supply chain complexity, we devise and test a model that predicts the frequency of supply chain disruptions based on a multi-dimensional conceptualization of upstream supply chain complexity. Not only do the empirical findings suggest that all of the three investigated complexity drivers – horizontal, vertical, and spatial complexity – increase the frequency of disruptions, but also that they interact and amplify each other's effects in a synergistic fashion.     

Guest Editorial: A purchasing and supply management view of supply resilience for better crisis response

Purchasing and supply management (PSM) has been under great pressure since the COVID-19 pandemic first shook the world. Companies and public organizations faced new kinds of supply disruptions, and at a scale never seen before. New response abilities were required from PSM to address these challenges and disruptions. This Editorial introduces four articles in the Special Issue on “PSM learning from the pandemic: transforming for better crisis management.” These empirical contributions show how companies could build resilience to survive and be competitive during the COVID-19 pandemic. This Editorial discusses how supply resilience should be conceptualized in post-pandemic supply chains adopting a PSM perspective. We suggest that supply resilience practices should be developed and planned according to whether they strengthen existing supply chain relationships (bridging) or establish new ones (buffering) and whether they are short-term (temporary) or long-term (permanent) orientated. Furthermore, three supply resilience capabilities, absorbing, responding and capitalizing, should be prioritized in supply chains for responding to and recovering from global crises and disruptions. Supply resilience is key to crisis response and recovery, and PSM has an essential role in building and sustaining that resilience.     

基于多Agent的供应链风险管理

通过引入供应链风险的概念,探索供应链风险管理的意义,介绍了国内外企业和学术界的研究情况,同时在基于Agent相关理论基础上,将Agent的智能技术应用到供应链风险管理中,从而建立了基于多Agent系统的供应链风险管理模型（MABSCRM）。识别风险来源,衡量风险特征并实施控制,进而协调供应链内部各成员的关系,以期达到减少干扰。提高供应链整体运行效率。这个模型对供应链风险管理者在进行下一次的供应链运作将有很好的帮助。     

An information fusion FMEA method to assess the risk of healthcare waste

Healthcare waste (HCW) management plays a vital role in the development of modern society. In HCW management, failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) is a popular method to implement risk management for improving the quality of healthcare. However, the shortcomings of the traditional FMEA method have been widely discussed in literatures. This paper proposes an information fusion FMEA method based on 2-tuple linguistic information and interval probability. The 2-tuple linguistic set theory is adopted to change the heterogeneous information into interval numbers. Meanwhile, the interval probability comparison method is applied to analyze failure modes. Finally, a case study is presented to verify the reliability and effectiveness of the proposed method by comparing different FMEA methods.     

基于SCOR的农产品供应链运作模型

SCOR(供应链运作参考模型)模型是由美国供应链管理协会SCC研发和支持的,它主要适用于各种工业领域。供应链运作模型能够帮助企业进行供应链流程的重构,依照计划、采购、生产、分销和退货五个环节对物流过程进行重构。文章依据于供应链、供应链管理的概念,分析中国农产品行业供应链管理的问题,依托于SCOR模型的第一层,分析和设计了一个简化的农产品供应链管理系统,并将其划分为农产品供应链的采购环节、生产环节、加工环节、营销环节、物流环节、回收环节,对各个环节分别进行分析研究,提出一个完整的农产品供应链的运作模型。     

我国石油施工作业风险管理探讨

石油施工作业是一种高风险作业,一旦发生事故,不仅会给企业造成巨大的经济损失,而且会造成极大的环境破坏,损害企业形象,因此,风险管理对于石油企业显得更为重要。如何完善石油施工作业的风险分析,加强石油施工作业的风险控制,提高石油施工作业的风险管理水平,已成为石油企业的当务之急。本文就石油施工作业的风险管理问题进行了探讨,并结合国内的实际情况,提出了一些具体的建议和措施,希望对我国石油企业的稳步发展有所助益。     

Supply chain analysis of e-tailing versus retailing operation – a case study

The swift growth of e-commerce or e-tailing as a consumer retail channel has made it a serious competitor to traditional retail channels and is changing consumers’ purchasing behaviour. The purpose of this case study, based on Target and Amazon.com, is to analyse the attributes of traditional retailing, e-tailing, and hybrid supply chain models to form conclusions about the feasibility of an idealised supply chain model for the future. An integrated and generalised modelling framework is used that incorporates Six Sigma – define, measure, analyse, improve, control methodology leveraging various tools, including process flow maps, cause and effect diagram, performance efficiency metrics, failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA), and Monte Carlo simulation. Based on this analysis and research, the conclusion is that the idealised supply chain of the future may evolve into a hybrid supply chain, which includes both e-tail and retail channels. The main recommendations from this study include assessing the risks of migrating to such a hybrid supply chain and to leverage the recommended actions provided in the hybrid FMEA. To facilitate more effective and mature processes, this study can guide researchers in exhaustive empirical evaluations of hybrid supply chains, gather experiences and lessons learned for practitioners.     

Proactive planning for catastrophic events in supply chains

Supply chains are increasingly vulnerable to catastrophic events such as hurricanes or terrorist attacks. This is not only true because firms are more exposed to catastrophes, but also the result of investments made in recent years to operate supply chains with fewer human and capital resources, especially inventory. Consequently, there is today less “slack” available in supply chains to deal with catastrophic events. Thus, proactively planning for these types of events should be a priority for supply chain managers. A catastrophic event has a very low probability of occurrence but has significant consequences if it does occur. The goal of this research is to develop a process to proactively plan for catastrophic risk events through an integration of diverse research streams related to the management of risk. In particular, the proposed process builds upon an existing risk analysis framework by incorporating an innovative methodology used by the insurance industry to quantify the risk of multiple types of catastrophic events on key supply chain locations.     

基于模糊综合评价法的酒店供应链风险评价研究

企业运用供应链管理,提高企业核心竞争力和增加利润的同时,也面临着供应链管理带来的一系列风险。文中通过分析酒店供应链模型及其特点,识别出酒店供应链所面临的风险,构建了酒店供应链风险评价指标体系和模糊综合评价模型,并通过实证分析酒店供应链的风险水平。.     

Firm's resilience to supply chain disruptions: Scale development and empirical examination

This paper expands our understanding of factors that contribute to development of firm resilience to supply chain disruptions. In doing so, we operationalize firm resilience to understand how supply chain disruption orientated firms can develop resilience to supply chain disruptions. We find that supply chain disruption orientation alone is not enough for a firm to develop resilience. Supply chain disruption oriented firms require the ability to reconfigure resources or have a risk management resource infrastructure to develop resilience. The way in which supply chain disruption oriented firms develop resilience through resource reconfiguration or risk management infrastructure depends on the context of the disruption as high impact or low impact. In a high impact disruption context, resource reconfiguration fully mediates the relationship between supply chain disruption orientation and firm resilience. In a low impact disruption context, supply chain disruption orientation and risk management infrastructure have a synergistic effect on developing firm resilience.     

浅议绿色供应链管理及其业绩评价

传统的供应链被定义为企业从原材料和零部件采购，运输，加工制造，分销直至最终送到顾客手中的这一过程被看成是一个环环相扣的链条，在传统供应链中加入“绿色”概念就形成了绿色供应链。本文讨论了由于环境因素导致传统供应链的扩展及绿色供应链与传统供应链的区别，并介绍了一些绿色供应链的业绩评价指标。绿色供应链能够实现经济效应和环境效应双重目的，具有很大的现实意义。