Developing resilient supply chains: lessons from high-reliability organisations

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to identify the prescribed formative elements of supply chain resilience (SCR) in literature, to compare them with the unique characteristics of high reliability organisations (HROs) and derive lessons useful for improving SCR. Design/methodology/approach Two systematic literature reviews are carried out as follows: one on SCR and the other on HRO, which identified 107 studies and 18 papers, respectively. The results from the review are presented, analysed and synthesised. Findings Findings suggest that despite significant similarities in some of the proposed formative elements for SCR and the characteristics of HROs, the strong managerial commitment exhibited in HROs is absent in SCR literature. More importantly, the most cited characteristic of HROs, which is their flexible decision making structure is pointed out as a prima lesson towards developing resilience in supply chains. Practical implications A decision making framework to facilitate flexible decision making for supply chains during crisis is presented. Further, practical lessons are pointed out from principles common to both streams of literature such as redundancy, human resource management, collaboration, agility, flexibility, culture and risk avoidance that can be implemented in supply chains. Originality/value This paper is the first study to systematically review HROs, adapt a HRO decision making framework and also apply the Cynefin framework to SCR. This, therefore, provides the basis to launch further research into the use of these theories and the role of decision-making in SCR creation.

The role of collaborative interorganizational relationships in supply chain risks: a systematic review using a social capital perspective

“…The buyer-led practices of supplier development and supplier performance management enable risk visibility (Jüttner and Maklan, 2011; Manhart et al , 2020), which helps to contain supply risks’ propagation to downstream networks of buyers (Zhang et al , 2018). Supplier development can reduce disaster risks (Dahlmann and Roehrich, 2019; Hu et al , 2019; Sawyerr and Harrison, 2019) and mitigate supply risks (Chowdhury et al , 2019; Fan and Stevenson, 2018; Zhao et al , 2013), as it trains suppliers to be proactively aware of problems such as supply quality risks (Tse et al , 2019) or slave labor (Gold et al , 2015). The more supply, manufacturing and transportation risks increase, the more buyers’ SCRs awareness rises, which elevates supplier development (Jajja et al , 2018).…”

Simulation-optimization methods for designing and assessing resilient supply chain networks under uncertainty scenarios: A review

“…Little attention is paid by these authors to modeling articles. Such concepts and others related to SCN resilience are also identified by Sawyerr and Harrison [139] , who call them “formative elements”. These are compared with characteristics of high reliability organizations.…”

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

“…This information must include (among others) density, complexity and criticality of the nodes in the face of disruptive events. 28 12.07% [25,26,[29][30][31][32][33]46,114,125,130,157,160,163,165,168,169,190,202,203,205,[212][213][214][215][216][217] Trust…”

“…The ability of the members of the supply chain to establish and maintain coordinated work teams and defined procedures for action in the face of possible disruptive events caused by the environment and their implementation when the event occurs. 20 8.62% [2,12,19,32,33,37,46,132,134,137,157,[167][168][169][170]185,213,214,222] Table A2. Cont.…”

“…It includes the ability to manage its human resources to be trained, coached and evaluated for performance in the face of disruptive events. 16 6.89% [26,[31][32][33]37,46,129,131,163,165,169,172,213,218,225] Market adaptation…”