When preemptive risk mitigation is insufficient: The effectiveness of continuity and resilience techniques during COVID‐19

The extreme demand volatility caused by corona virus 2019 (COVID‐19) overwhelmed most preemptive measures enacted by firms to mitigate disruptions in their supply chains. This led to the rapid implementation of reactive measures to provide business continuity. The operations and supply chain management literature has grouped these reactive techniques into those that involve the reconfiguration of firm resources and those that involve changes to its decision‐making processes. Unfortunately, little of this work has empirically assessed the efficacy of individual reactive techniques on business continuity after the onset of a disruption such as COVID‐19. The research reported in this paper addresses this gap through an experimental design and discrete‐event simulation to empirically test the impact on firm outcomes of resource reconfiguration techniques versus those related to adaptive decision‐making processes. Data from a canned foods manufacturer is used to populate the simulation and isolate the impact of these reactive changes implemented in March 2020 at the beginning of the COVID‐19 disruption on the attainment of business continuity in the 3 months following the COVID‐19 disruption. The results show that for this company, decision‐making changes—specifically changes to planning process cadence and time horizon—had more impact on business continuity than those focused on resource reconfiguration (increasing capacity through stock keeping unit (SKU) prioritization and increasing the number of shifts). These results, in addition to qualitative data collected from company executives to provide context for the modeling results, are used to provide insights that are generalizable to many firms.

Systemic risks in supply chains: a need for system-level governance

PurposeGlobal and interconnected supply chains are increasingly exposed to systemic risks, whereby individual failures propagate across firms, sectors and borders. Systemic risks have emerged from the decisions of individual firms, e.g., outsourcing and buffer reduction, and are now beyond their control. This paper aims to identify appropriate approaches to mitigating those risks.Design/methodology/approachSystemic risks require analyzing supply chains beyond a dyadic perspective. This study approaches the problem through the lenses of complex systems and network theories. Drawing on the lessons learned from other systemic-risk-prone systems, e.g. energy and financial networks, both in research and practice, this study analyzes the adequate level of governance to monitor and manage systemic risks in supply chains.FindingsThe authors argue that governance institutions should be mandated to overview and reduce systemic risks in supply chains from the top down, as central bankers do for the financial system. Using firm-level data and tools from network analysis and system dynamics, they could quantify systemic risks, identify risk-prone interconnections in supply chains and design mitigating measures. This top-down approach would complement the bottom-up supply chain management approach and could help insurers design policies for contingent business interruptions.Originality/valueInstead of looking at supply chains purely from the firms' angle, the perspective of insurers and governments is brought in to reflect on the governance of risks.

GDP responses to supply chain disruptions in a post-pandemic era: Combination of DL and ANN outputs based on Google Trends

With the recent Russian-Ukraine conflict, the frequency and intensity of disruptive shocks on major supply chains have risen, causing increasing food and energy security concerns for regulators. That is, the combination of newly available sophisticated deep learning tools with real-time series data may represent a fruitful policy direction because machines can identify patterns without being pre-conditioned calibration thanks to experimental data training. This paper employs Deep Learning (DL) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) algorithms and aimed predicts GDP responses to supply chain disruptions, energy prices, economic policy uncertainty, and google trend in the US. Sampled data from 2008 to 2022 are monthly wrangled and embed different recession episodes connected to the subprime crisis of 2008, the COVID-19 pandemic, the recent invasion of Ukraine by Russia, and the current economic recession in the US. Both DL and ANN outputs empirically (and unanimously) demonstrated how sensitive monthly GDP variations are to dynamic changes in supply chain performances. Findings identify the substantial role of google trends in delivering a consistent fit to predicted GDP values, which has implications While a comparative discussion over the larger forecasting performance of DL compared to ANN experiments is offered, implications for global policy, decision-makers and firm managers are finally provided. © 2023 Elsevier Inc.

Resilience strategies in coping to disruptions of wheat supply chain caused by the Russia–Ukraine war crisis: case study from an emerging economy

Purpose: The Russia–Ukraine war has disrupted the wheat supply worldwide. Given that wheat is one of the most important agri-food products in the world, it is necessary to pay attention to the wheat supply chain during the global crises. The use of resilience strategies is one of the solutions to face the supply chain disruptions. In addition, there is a possibility of multiple crises occurring in global societies simultaneously. Design/methodology/approach: In this research, the resilience strategies of backup suppliers (BS) and inventory pre-prepositioning (IP) were discussed in order to cope with the wheat supply chain disruptions. Furthermore, the p-Robust Scenario-based Stochastic Programming (PRSSP) approach was used to optimize the wheat supply chain under conditions of disruptions from two perspectives, feasibility and optimality. Findings: After implementing the problem of a real case in Iran, the results showed that the use of resilience strategy reduced costs by 9.33%. It was also found that if resilience strategies were used, system's flexibility and decision-making power increased. Besides, the results indicated that if resilience strategies were used and another crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, supply chain costs would increase less than when resilience strategies were not used. Originality/value: In this study, the design of the wheat supply chain was discussed according to the wheat supply disruptions due to the Russia–Ukraine war and its implementation on a real case. In the following, various resilience strategies were used to cope with the wheat supply chain disruptions. Finally, the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the wheat supply chain in the conditions of disruptions caused by the Russia–Ukraine war was investigated. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Identification of key drivers for improving inventory management in pharmaceutical supply chains

Existing literature on optimizing inventory levels in pharmaceutical supply chains has focused on a limited set of drivers. However, the global supply chain disruptions produced by the Covid-19 pandemic demonstrated the need for a more nuanced picture of the inventory management drivers in this sector to identify profitable inventory configurations while fulfilling demands and safety margins. To address this gap in the literature, this paper identifies key drivers impacting inventory levels and develops a framework for assessing inventory configurations in pharmaceutical supply chains. The framework is tested using a single case study approach. The case study showed that while external and downstream supply chain factors were recognized as being critical to pursuing inventory reduction initiatives, internal factors prevailed when making inventory management decisions. The framework developed in this paper may assist practitioners in identifying the most important factors impacting inventory levels within a specific pharmaceutical supply chain configuration and is in use in the industry today. © 2023, The Author(s) under exclusive licence to German Academic Society for Production Engineering (WGP).

The organizational side of a disruption mitigation process: exploring a case study during the COVID-19 pandemic

This paper deals with the mitigation process of the COVID-19 pandemic. Scholars propose and discuss several mitigation strategies to face the COVID-19 disruptions, mainly focusing on technology and supply chain redesign related aspects. Less attention has been paid to the organizational aspects of the mitigation process. We address this gap through an in-depth analysis of the reactive organizational practices implemented by an Italian company during the COVID-19 pandemic. We further compare these practices with those proposed in the disruption management literature to identify common traits and differences. The results show that the overall management of a pandemic's mitigation process does not significantly differ from that of conventional disruptions, since both contexts require the same basic organizational practices. However, some peculiarities on how these practices should be implemented in a pandemic setting do emerge, such as the implementation of a cyclic rather than linear problem-solving process, the adoption of a learning-by-doing approach, the need of a risk-taker mindset and the importance of creativity and improvisation. Besides complementing the literature, these findings allow to provide indications to managers on how to organize and coordinate the activities during the mitigation process, as well as on what capabilities and competencies should be leveraged to face the pandemic's disruptions.

Supply Shocks in Supply Chains: Evidence from the Early Lockdown in China

How do firms in global value chains react to input shortages? We examine micro-level adjustments to supply chain shocks, building on the Covid-19 pandemic as a case study. French firms sourcing inputs from China just before the early lockdown in the country experienced a relative drop in imports that increases from February to April 2020. This shock on input purchases transmits to the rest of the supply chain through exposed firm's domestic and export sales. Between February and June, firms exposed to the Chinese early lockdown experienced a 5.5% drop in domestic sales and a 5% drop in exports, in relative terms with respect to comparable non-exposed firms. The drop in foreign sales is entirely attributable to a lower volume of exports driven by a temporary withdrawal from occasional markets. We then dig into the heterogeneity of the transmission across treated firms. Whereas the ex-ante geographic diversification of inputs does not seem to mitigate the impact of the shock, firms with relatively high inventories have been able to absorb the supply shock better.

A Meta-Analysis of Health care Supply Chain Performance for Patient Safety

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has had a huge impact all over the world. Healthcare industry is one that has been greatly affected by Global supply chain disruption, including shortages of critical medical equipment and drugs, insufficiency of diagnostic, and inadequacy of medical personnel. The aforementioned problems directly affect human health in the dimension of 'patient safety' which may cause life-threatening situations. Therefore, it is important to learn how to strengthen the healthcare supply chain (HSC) and increase safety, particularly for patients. There are various researchers who studied HSC performance in developed countries but the research in developing countries especially southeast Asia countries e.g., Cambodia is scarce. Therefore, this research aims to identify and synthesize HSC performance for patient safety and provide a novel model of HSC performance in developing countries' healthcare settings. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) was conducted using a patient safety definition from WHO, International Patient Safety Goals from Joint Commission International (JCI), and the Hospital Accreditation institute (HA) from Thailand. The HSC performances are categorized under the easily recognizable heading SIMPLE (stands for patient safety goals in 6 domains as follows: Safe surgery, Infection Prevention & Control, Medication safety, Patient care process, Laboratory & blood product safety, and Emergency preparedness and response). The novel model of HSC performance for patient safety is provided to demonstrate the factors that can enhance the performance of HSC management in developing countries. Moreover, this study contributes to the meta-analysis by analyzing existing research and proposing new future research opportunities in HSC performance for patient safety that leads to social sustainability. © 2022 IEEE.

Vehicle Management System: Fuel, Mileage, Cost, and Maintenance Tracker

According to the supply chain disruptions induced by the COVID-19 pandemic and the situation between NATO and Russia that led to the rising of fuel costs. Rising fuel costs are a massive problem for business and consumers. People must pay more money for their living because higher fuel costs affect costs of products, services, and transportation. This paper aims to develop the vehicle management system to track the fuel usage, mileage, cost, and maintenance of cars in an organization. The system is developed in a form of a web application for reporting a fuel usage and requesting permission to reserve a car. We used HTML, PHP, and Laravel Jetstream to develop this web application for employees and administrators. Employee can choose a car and submit a reservation form through a website. While administrator can manage cars information through the dashboard. User can use the mobile application to check in to get a car when a car is ready to use and check out a car when he/she wants to return a car to a company. © 2023 IEEE.

Simulating Counterfeit Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Supply Chains During Covid-19

Increased demand for medical supplies, and specifically respirators and face masks, during the Covid-19 pandemic along with the inability of legitimate suppliers to meet these needs created a window of opportunity for counterfeiters to capitalize on the supply chain disruptions caused by a global health crisis. Both legitimate and illicit businesses began shifting their scope from sectors such as textiles to producing and distributing personal protective equipment (PPE), many of which were counterfeit or unauthentic products and thus unable to properly protect users. To study cost-effective disruption strategies, this study proposes a simulation-optimization framework. The framework is used to model counterfeiters' behavior and analyze the effectiveness of different disruption strategies for counterfeit PPE supply chains during the Covid-19 pandemic. © 2022 IEEE.

The influencing chain of panic buying: Lessons learned from the pandemic for crisis communication: Presenter(s): Sonja Bidmon, Universitaet Klagenfurt, Austria

Especially at the outbreak of the ongoing pandemic, panic buying could be observed in many European countries, leading to empty shelves and stock-outs of medical products in pharmacies (e.g., protective masks, disinfectants) and supply chain disruptions for several product categories. Stock-out situations prevent individuals as well as vulnerable groups from accessing daily necessities and medical supplies (Wesseler, 2020). Different theoretical approaches have been used to explain panic buying behaviour like contagion theory (LeBon, 1960, cited by Prentice et al. 2020), crowd psychology theory (Drury et al., 2013), resource scarcity (Yoon et al. 2018) as well as compensatory control theory (Barnes et al. 2021) or even game theory (Taylor, 2021). So far, however, little attention has been paid to investigate which individuals engage more in panic buying than others. Thus, the present study develops a psychographic influencing chain of panic buying. The authors investigate the influence of four psychographic variables (neuroticism, conscientiousness, COVID-19 involvement, COVID-19 anxiety) and risk perception (mediator) on panic buying and report on an empirical study with 309 respondents by applying an online survey among the student base of a mid-sized Austrian university. A prerequisite for participation was the responsibility for purchasing daily necessities in their own household at the beginning of the first lockdown (March 2020). The results derived from SEM emphasise the importance of conscientiousness, COVID-19 involvement and anxiety as valuable antecedents, the latter two being mediated by risk perception, on the extent of panic buying. The findings have implications for theory and practice of communication during pandemics. Knowledge about which segments of the population are more prone to panic buying can be used to develop more tailored mediated communication and help vulnerable groups to access daily necessities and medical supplies, especially during the outbreak and lock down phases of a pandemic. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Patient Education & Counseling is the property of Elsevier B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

A System Dynamics Model for Studying the Resiliency of Supply Chains and Informing Mitigation Policies for Responding to Disruptions

Economic shocks are unanticipated events that have widespread impact on an economy and can lead to supply chain disruptions that propagate from one region to another. The COVID-19 pandemic is a recent example. Simulations have been applied to study the impact of COVID-19 shocks on supply chains at the macro level using various approaches. This research has developed a hybrid System Dynamics and Input/Output simulation to model the economic impact of various types of supply chain disruptions. The hybrid model provides results that match historical performance of the U.S. economy under COVID-19 shocks and provides reasonable results when applied to investigate U.S. dependence on foreign trade. Its graphical nature also supports a decision support tool that will allow policymakers to explore the costs and benefits of various policy decisions designed to mitigate the impact of a broad set of potential supply chain disruptions. © 2022 IEEE.

Enhance Supply Chain Resilience through Industry 4.0-A view of designing simulation scenarios

COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war demonstrate the inevitability of supply chain disruptions. A lack of effective supply chain resilience (SCR) causes mismatches between demand and supply, and the destabilization of normal operational policies in production, distribution, and inventory control. Existing research mainly provides different definitions and measurements of supply chain resilience for different product supply chains. In this paper, we look at how Industry 4.0 (14.0) technologies enhance supply chain resilience. An 14.0 enabled architecture is designed for a factory with multiple suppliers and extended inventory for improving SCR. Different simulation scenarios for a LED factory are designed for demonstrating 14.0 technologies supporting SCR in different phases. © 2022 IEEE.

Coping in supply chains: a conceptual framework for disruption management

PurposeThe Covid-19 pandemic exposed the fragility of global supply chains. Attempts to deepen our understanding of the effects of the pandemic on global supply chains mostly offer anecdotal evidences and lack theory grounded research. The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework to help explain supply chain disruption management.Design/methodology/approachThis is a conceptual paper and uses a theory building approach. It develops a conceptual framework adapted from coping theory in psychology to explain supply chain disruption management. To refine the framework, the authors independently reviewed extant supply chain disruption management literature. The authors then studied the frameworks on stress theory in psychology. Following the review of both streams of literatures, the authors developed an initial draft of the conceptual model. This draft was then iteratively refined through extensive discussions among the authors.FindingsCoping theory can help revise supply chain disruption management with an alternative lens that has not been applied before in this domain. The proposed conceptual framework is generic and can be applied to disruption management strategies for any organization in any industry.Originality/valueThe conceptual framework proposed in this paper offers a new theoretical lens to supply chain disruption management discourse. It contributes to the operational understanding of supply chain disruption management.

Post-pandemic adaptation and development of supply chain viability theory

The design and management of an efficient, resilient, and viable supply chain (SC) capable of operations and demand fulfillment continuity despite severe disruptions is imperative for the survivability of firms and for providing society with essential goods and services in long-term crises. This Special Issue focuses on SC adaptation and viability as novel decision-making settings for operations research and management science (OR/MS) emerged in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which goes beyond short-term, singular event-driven disruptions. Papers in the Special Issue present new and original OR/MS research to support decision-making related to long-term SC crises with inherent uncertainty about the present and future. Since SC viability theory is relatively new, this Special Issue contributes to advancing our knowledge and application fields for designing and managing SCs as viable systems. We present fundamentals of SC viability theory, review and summarize papers in the Special Issue, and project some future research directions. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd

The role of Industry 4.0 in developing resilience for manufacturing companies during COVID-19

Humanity has faced many crises in the past, such as pandemics, wars, and economic crises, and other crises are certain to come in the future;however, emerging technologies have a role to play in improving companies' resilience in the face of such crises. The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has led to human, technological, and managerial constraints for manufacturing companies due to scarce resources or supply chain (SC) disruptions. The research goal of this paper is to investigate whether Industry 4.0 implementation improved companies' resilience and whether companies' performance maintained stability during the COVID-19 outbreak. Composite-based structural equation modeling is applied to analyse data collected from 207 manufacturing companies. The theoretical model is grounded in the Practice-Based View (PBV) theory. The research findings show that operational responses based on Industry 4.0, smart manufacturing practices, and smart capabilities enable manufacturers to build resilience and quickly mitigate performance loss in times of global crisis. Therefore, the results demonstrate that Industry 4.0 implementation provides resilience for companies through flexibility, reliability, robustness, and responsiveness. The main practical implication of this study is to support managers in achieving manufacturing performance stability during disrupted times, such as the COVID-19 crisis, using Industry 4.0 approaches to make their companies more resilient and prepared to face future challenges and crises. © 2022 Elsevier B.V.

Towards increasing synergistic effects of resilience strategies in supply chain network design

The recent COVID-19 pandemic showed that supply chain resilience is essential for continuity of many businesses, especially retail chains. However, there are still some challenges that have received little attention in the resilient supply chain network design (RSCND) literature. While numerous resilience strategies have been proposed to make supply chain networks resilient against disruptions, very few papers have discussed why and how those resilience strategies are selected out of many potential candidates given various sources of disruption, i.e., natural, man-made, and pandemic-oriented disruptions. The aim of this paper is to propose a multi-methodological approach, based on resource dependence theory and two-stage stochastic programming, for choosing the right resilience strategies in a RSCND problem considering their positive and negative synergistic effects under resource constraints. These interactions among resilience strategies can be referred to as supply chain dynamics. We then present a novel approach for determining the most suitable combination of candidate strategies with respect to these synergistic effects. The criticality of nodes and the susceptibility of the network in different echelons are also examined via simulating the disruptive risks in hidden and unexpected places. We provide a case study from the retail industry that illustrates the potentially significant impacts of network disruptions. Via extensive stress-testing, we show the benefits of applying multiple resilience capabilities simultaneously. Our findings demonstrate the importance of considering synergistic effects among resilience strategies under budget limitations for supply chain resilience. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd

Blockchain Technology and Its Relationship With Supply Chain Resilience: A Dynamic Capability Perspective

Blockchain technology (BCT) as a disruptive innovation has chains (SCs) to effectively deal with severe disruptions, such as those accompanied by COVID-19. To this end, this study explores BCT's role in minimizing the negative impact of such SC disruptions and improving SC resilience. Our study employs semistructured interviews interwoven with thematic analysis to identify the capabilities deployable by BCT at each stage of disruption. Our study reveals key issues associated with contemporary SC networks and the capabilities that can be enhanced by blockchain-enabled SCs to mitigate such issues. Our study further proposes a conceptual framework highlighting the relationships among various phases of disruption, blockchain capabilities, and SC resilience capabilities through the theoretical lens of the dynamic capabilities view. The proposed framework underscores that for a firm operating in a dynamic and rapidly changing environment, BCT can enhance the ability to sense, ability to seize, and ability to maintain. IEEE

Ready-Made-Garments: Supply-Chain Management & COVID-19 Impacts

Though supply chain management (SCM) is widely researched in several application domains, SCM literature concentrates more on the production industry, the service sector, and, far less so, SCM academics. In articulating SCM theory and development, this chapter highlights its chronological services/manufacturing business perspectives. While standard supply chain, from raw material to finished products, for service and manufacturing industries, includes various intermediate parties/organizations, what this paper concentrates on is the evolutionary SCM timeline and the essential SCM principles of the ready-made garments (RMG) industry. Such an analysis illustrates the COVID-19 pandemic impacts on localizing the global RMG production network industry inside Bangladesh. Various effective ways of short-term and mid-to-long-term action factors to operate supply chain stand out, as too the need for reshaping the future supply chain. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

Ready-Made-Garments: Supply-Chain Management & COVID-19 Impacts

Though supply chain management (SCM) is widely researched in several application domains, SCM literature concentrates more on the production industry, the service sector, and, far less so, SCM academics. In articulating SCM theory and development, this chapter highlights its chronological services/manufacturing business perspectives. While standard supply chain, from raw material to finished products, for service and manufacturing industries, includes various intermediate parties/organizations, what this paper concentrates on is the evolutionary SCM timeline and the essential SCM principles of the ready-made garments (RMG) industry. Such an analysis illustrates the COVID-19 pandemic impacts on localizing the global RMG production network industry inside Bangladesh. Various effective ways of short-term and mid-to-long-term action factors to operate supply chain stand out, as too the need for reshaping the future supply chain. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.