OR-methods for coping with the ripple effect in supply chains during COVID-19 pandemic: Managerial insights and research implications

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic unveils unforeseen and unprecedented fragilities in supply chains (SC). A primary stressor of SCs and their subsequent shocks derives from disruption propagation (i.e., the ripple effect) through related networks. In this paper, we conceptualize current state and future research directions on the ripple effect for pandemic context. We scrutinize the existing OR (Operational Research) studies published in international journals dealing with disruption propagation and structural dynamics in SCs. Our study pursues two major contributions in relation to two research questions. First, we collate state-of-the-art research on disruption propagation in SCs and identify a methodical taxonomy along with theories displaying their value and applications for coping with the impacts of pandemics on SCs. Second, we reveal and systemize managerial insights from theory used for operating (adapting) amid a pandemic and during times of recovery, along with becoming more resistant to future pandemics. Streamlining the literature allowed us to reveal several new research tensions and novel categorizations and classifications. The outcomes of our study show that methodical contributions and the resulting managerial insights can be categorized into three levels, i.e., network, process, and control. Our analysis reveals that adaptation capabilities play the most crucial role in managing the SCs under pandemic disruptions. Our findings depict how the existing OR methods can help coping with the ripple effect at five pandemic stages (i.e., Anticipation; Early Detection; Containment; Control and Mitigation; and Elimination) following the WHO classification. The outcomes and findings of our study can be used by industry and researchers alike to progress the decision-support systems guiding SCs amid the COVID-19 pandemic and toward recovery. Suggestions for future research directions are offered and discussed.

COVID-19 pandemic related supply chain studies: A systematic review

“…As a response to such issues, several studies suggested strategies for increasing upstream resilience. For example, Ivanov & Dolgui (2020a) proposed enhancing visibility by mapping supply networks, to predict potential disruptions and their consequences. This mapping can be useful for formulating node/supplier-specific strategies.…”

“…The scope of the challenges faced by these organizations largely depends on the severity of the outbreaks in question. A widespread public health incident such as an epidemic or pandemic can have substantial negative impacts on businesses and supply chains, including reducing their efficiency and performance ( Guan et al, 2020 , Ivanov, 2020a , Sodhi, 2016 ), and propagating disruptions across the supply chains (known as ripple effects) that affect their resilience and sustainability ( Ivanov, 2020b , Ivanov and Dolgui, 2020a ). Supply chains have encountered many severe disease outbreaks in the recent past; thus far, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported 1438 epidemics just between 2011 and 2018 ( Hudecheck et al, 2020 ).…”

Ripple effect and supply chain disruption management: new trends and research directions

“…We conducted a SCOPUS search based on the titles of the literature dealing with the ripple effect and in line with (Ivanov and Dolgui 2020c) as follows: (supply AND chain AND (ripple AND effect) OR (cascading AND failure) OR (risk AND transmission) OR (snowball AND effect) OR (risk AND propagation) OR (disruption AND propagation) OR (disturbance AND propagation) OR (structural AND dynamics). We limited the results to 'Business and Management', 'Engineering', and 'Decision Science' areas, and articles published in international journals.…”

“…inventory and capacity buffers, backup sourcing, product substitution) Ma, He, and Gu (2020), Özçelik, Yılmaz, and Yeni (2020), Azaron, Venkatadri, and Doost (2020), Jahani et al (2020), Gholami-Zanjani et al (2020) Operative control level Reactive policy deployments for ripple effect control and recovery Choi (2020), Lee, Yoon, and Lee (2020) Table 1 provides an overview of the papers included in this special issue, their methodologies and major outcomes. In Table 2, the contributions shown in Table 1 are divided into a three-level structure following the classification proposed by Ivanov and Dolgui (2020c).…”

A COVID-19 Supply Chain Management Strategy Based on Variable Production under Uncertain Environment Conditions

“…Hence, for an emergency supply chain management, establishing models, defining roles along with responsibilities, and coordination across every tier of the chain is required, which is an overwhelming task for developing countries [ 20 ]. Recently, researchers have identified OR methods for containing the ripple effects generated by the COVID situation [ 21 ].…”