Supply Chain Risk Management

Are you planning to visit a conference in the near future? Scott Berkun and many other authors write about how to get the most out of your visit. Here I am summarizing the key insights.

One of the most published supply risk researchers is George A. Zsidisin. In his 2003 article he describes the characteristics of inbound supply that affect the perception of risk.

Supply Risk
The author defines supply risk as

the potential occurrence of an incident associated with inbound supply from individual supplier failures or the supply market, in which its outcomes result in the inability of the purchasing firm to meet customer demand or cause threats to customer life and safety.

He therefore includes the probability and significance of an adverse event.

In his 2009 paper Brian Tomlin analyzes strategies to mitigate disruption risks in a three echelon supply chain.

Setting
Focus in his research is a single company, with its suppliers and customers. The objective is to maximize expected utility, while demand and supply are uncertain. There are two products available which can be used as substitutes. The time horizon for the decision maker is one season where the products can be sold.

Three different sourcing structures are considered.

I already reviewed two other articles about agile supply chains. One on the role of distribution centers in supply chains and one on the migration from lean to agile supply chains.

But the question comes to mind if lean and agile supply chains have to be mutually exclusive or if it is possible to combine them. Christopher and Towill (2001) had a look at this question regarding the supply chain design.

Perhaps this research by Pero et al. can support small and medium sized companies with the design and redesign of its supply chain network.
The goal of the study was to analyze the connection between topological features of the supply chain and the resulting supply chain performance.

Method and Model
The authors used simulation techniques and statistical analysis to simulate a pull based supply network. The network consists of a retailer-, distributor- and manufacturer-level.
Demand and lead times were random, the supply chain performance was measured with stock outs that occured.