Network design for resilience in supply chains using novel crazy elitist TLBO

An enhanced PSO algorithm to configure a responsive-resilient supply chain network considering environmental issues: a case study of the oxygen concentrator device

In recent years, the hyper-competitive marketplace has led to a drastic enhancement in the importance of the supply chain problem. Hence, the attention of managers and researchers has been attracted to one of the most crucial problems in the supply chain management area called the supply chain network design problem. In this regard, this research attempts to design an integrated forward and backward logistics network by proposing a multi-objective mathematical model. The suggested model aims at minimizing the environmental impacts and the costs while maximizing the resilience and responsiveness of the supply chain. Since uncertainty is a major issue in the supply chain problem, the present paper studies the research problem under the mixed uncertainty and utilizes the robust possibilistic stochastic method to cope with the uncertainty. On the other side, since configuring a supply chain is known as an NP-Hard problem, this research develops an enhanced particle swarm optimization algorithm to obtain optimal/near-optimal solutions in a reasonable time. Based on the achieved results, the developed algorithm can obtain high-quality solutions (i.e. solutions with zero or a very small gap from the optimal solution) in a reasonable amount of time. The achieved results demonstrate the negative impact of the enhancement of the demand on environmental damages and the total cost. Also, according to the outputs, by increasing the service level, the total cost and environmental impacts have increased by 41% and 10%, respectively. On the other hand, the results show that increasing the disrupted capacity parameters has led to a 17% increase in the total costs and a 7% increase in carbon emissions.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00521-022-07739-8.

COVID-19 Challenges: Can Industry 4.0 Technologies Help with Business Continuity?

The COVID-19 pandemic has halted economic activities and made business dynamics much more challenging by introducing several additional operational, structural, and managerial constraints. The problem has affected global supply chains in many ways, and has questioned their long-term continuity. On the other hand, Industry 4.0 is an emerging phenomenon. However, there is a need to investigate how Industry 4.0 technologies may play a potential role in sustaining business operations to ease unprecedented causalities. The current research aims to investigate the potentiality of Industry 4.0 technologies to solve the COVID-19 challenges for long term sustainability. From an exploratory literature analysis coupled with the Delphi method, keeping in view the situation of the pandemic, ten challenge groups that have affected global business dynamics were identified. A questionnaire was developed with the aim of accumulating industrial and academic experts to evaluate the degree of influence and interrelationship among the identified challenges. The Decision Making, Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) approach was deployed to further analyze the challenges for the categorization of these into causes and effects, further prioritizing them for better decision making. The prioritized challenges from the list of causes were governmental policies and support, followed by real access to customers and a lack of infrastructure. Additionally, these challenges were further evaluated through the expert opinion of Industry 4.0 systems experts and strategic-level supply chain experts to potentially gauge the potency of Industry 4.0 technologies to solve COVID-19-induced challenges. The outcomes of this research (which used Delphi integrated with a DEMATEL approach) are expected to support businesses in formulating strategies with the aim of business continuity in combating future disruptions caused by COVID-19-like pandemics.

Enhancing healthcare supply chain resilience: decision-making in a fuzzy environment

Purpose

Resilience is a fundamental component of healthcare supply chains, as the quality and endurance of human life are dependent on them. However, there are numerous resilience-building measures, and there is a need for prioritization of those strategies. This research study aims to prioritize resilience strategies for healthcare supply chains while considering the risks that most severe, probable to occur and have the lengthiest periods of recovery.

Design/methodology/approach

This research study has used multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques for analysis. Initially, the criteria for prioritization of risks, i.e. severity, probability of occurrence and recovery time were assigned with importance weights through the fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (AHP). Then, these weights were used in the fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPIS) analysis for prioritization of risks. Subsequently, the identified risks were used for highlighting the appropriate resilience strategies through the fuzzy quality function deployment (QFD) technique.

Findings

Results indicate that Industry 4.0, multiple sourcing, risk awareness, agility and global diversification of suppliers, markets and operations are the most significant resilience strategies.

Research limitations/implications

This study's limitation is that it is conducted in a general perspective, rather than reducing the context to a developing or developed country. Different areas have variable market factors, due to which potential risks occur in a different form. Moreover, resilience strategies work differently in different environments. Therefore, for future endeavors, the studies should be carried out in a limited context.

Originality/value

This research study proposes a novel MCDM-based approach for ranking resilience strategies, in light of the most probable, severe and long-lasting risks. In addition, this approach has been employed for the enhancement of resilience in healthcare supply chains.

Impact of supplier innovativeness, top management support and strategic sourcing on supply chain resilience

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to explore the importance of supplier innovativeness (SI), top management support (TMS) and strategic sourcing (SS) in the development of supply chain (SC) resilience. The study also argues that organization culture (OC) strongly influences SI, TMS and SS in their importance in generating SC resilience.

Design/methodology/approach

The study adopted a cross-sectional approach for collecting online-survey-based responses for evaluating the validity of the proposed associations. Respondents were chosen ensuring that they have sufficient exposure in SC operations in their respective designations. With two reminders, around 212 completed responses were received and analyzed using partial least squares in SmartPLS 2.0.M3.

Findings

Findings suggested TMS as a positive enabler of SC resilience. However, although SI and SS had positive influences, they were not significant. The study argues that this may be attributed to the presence of OC as a strong precursor for SI, TMS and SS. The findings showed that OC is indeed a strong predictor of SI, TMS and SS.

Originality/value

The study has undersigned empirically the influence of OC in the development of SI, TMS and SS. The study is the foremost to acknowledge the influence of SI, TMS and SS on SC resilience.

A Conceptual Framework to Manage Resilience and Increase Sustainability in the Supply Chain

The challenges of global economies foster supply chains to have to increase their processes of collaboration and dependence between their nodes, generating an increase in the level of vulnerability to possible impacts and interruptions in their operations that may affect their sustainability. This has developed an emerging area of interest in supply chain management, considering resilience management as a strategic capability of companies, and causing an increase in this area of research. Additionally, supply chains should deal with the three dimensions of sustainability (economic, environmental, and social dimensions) by incorporating the three types of objectives in their strategy. Thus, there is a need to integrate both resilience and sustainability in supply chain management to increase competitiveness. In this paper, a systematic literature review is undertaken to analyze resilience management and its connection to increase supply chain sustainability. In the review, 232 articles published from 2000 to February 2020 in peer-reviewed journals in the Scopus and ScienceDirect databases are analyzed, classified, and synthesized. With the results, this paper develops a conceptual framework that integrates the fundamental elements for analyzing, measuring, and managing resilience to increase sustainability in the supply chain. Finally, conclusions, limitations, and future research lines are exposed.

Benchmarking the relationship between supply chain risk mitigation strategies and practices: an integrated approach

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between various risk management strategies and risk management practices in order to design and hence enact a suitable supply chain risk mitigation (RM) plan. Additionally, this study proposes a hierarchical framework to explain the mutual relationship between supply chain risk management (SCRM) practices and strategies by considering the underlying dimensions between them.

Design/methodology/approach

An amalgamation of systematic literature analysis (SLA) and correspondence analysis (CA) has been performed to develop the conceptual framework. A real-life case of Indian petroleum supply chain has been considered to validate and explain the proposed model.

Findings

The results reveal three underlying dimensions, which associate the relationship between RM strategies. They are, risk adaptability of SC managers with a variance of 34.71%, followed by resource capability of the firm and the degree of sophistication of RM practices, with variances of 27.72 and 20.35%, respectively. Risk avoidance strategy comprises of practices such as supplier evaluation, technology adaption, flexible process and information security. On the other extreme, the risk sharing strategy includes revenue sharing, insurance, collaboration, public–private partnership and so on as essential RM practices.

Research limitations/implications

The study not only focuses on the distinction between RM strategies and practices, which were used interchangeably in the prior literature, but also provides an association between the same by exploring the underlying dimensions. These underlying dimensions perform a crucial role while developing a risk management plan. This study explicitly focuses on the RM step of SCRM process. Pre and post risk mitigation phases of SCRM process, such as risk assessment and risk monitoring, are beyond the scope of the current research.

Originality/value

The paper develops a framework for mapping various RM strategies with their corresponding practices by considering the Indian petroleum supply chain as a viable case study. Various theoretical and business implications are derived in the context of the developing country.