Viable supply chain model: integrating agility, resilience and sustainability perspectives—lessons from and thinking beyond the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Viability is the ability of a supply chain (SC) to maintain itself and survive in a changing environment through a redesign of structures and replanning of performance with long-term impacts. In this paper, we theorize a new notion—the viable supply chain (VSC). In our approach, viability is considered as an underlying SC property spanning three perspectives, i.e., agility, resilience, and sustainability. The principal ideas of the VSC model are adaptable structural SC designs for supply–demand allocations and, most importantly, establishment and control of adaptive mechanisms for transitions between the structural designs. Further, we demonstrate how the VSC components can be categorized across organizational, informational, process-functional, technological, and financial structures. Moreover, our study offers a VSC framework within an SC ecosystem. We discuss the relations between resilience and viability. Through the lens and guidance of dynamic systems theory, we illustrate the VSC model at the technical level. The VSC model can be of value for decision-makers to design SCs that can react adaptively to both positive changes (i.e., the agility angle) and be able to absorb negative disturbances, recover and survive during short-term disruptions and long-term, global shocks with societal and economical transformations (i.e., the resilience and sustainability angles). The VSC model can help firms in guiding their decisions on recovery and re-building of their SCs after global, long-term crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. We emphasize that resilience is the central perspective in the VSC guaranteeing viability of the SCs of the future. Emerging directions in VSC research are discussed.

The relationship between nested patterns and the ripple effect in complex supply networks

“…Most of these studies have viewed robustness as a system's ability to withstand disruptions without the need to reorganise (Wieland and Wallenburg. 2012), whereas resilience is defined as a system's ability to move to a new, more desirable state, or return to the original configuration after being disturbed (Christopher and Peck, 2004;Ivanov 2020 andIvanov andDolgui 2020). In this study, we take the same view when using these two terms.…”

Sourcing with recycled materials: a contingent sourcing model with supply unavailability and setup time uncertainty for ripple effect mitigation

“…Dolgui, Ivanov, and Rozhkov (2020) demonstrated via a simulation-based approach that the ripple effect affects the bullwhip effect through backlog accumulation over the disruption time, hence requiring a contingent production-inventory control policy to mitigate both the ripple and bullwhip effects. When facing extraordinary disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic, Ivanov and Dolgui (2020) and Ivanov (2020) pointed out the need for SCR to mitigate disruptions at the survivability scale and laid out a novel decision-making environment for SCR that considers an intertwined supply network, which is a totality of interconnected SCs providing goods and services for society, and its viability. It is thus important for SCs to become reconfigurable in order to adapt to ever changing environments, where the design of reconfigurable SCs should factor in digitalisation, sustainability, resilience, and leagility (Dolgui, Ivanov, and Sokolov 2020).…”

The CoViD-19 Pandemic and the End of Corporate Risk Management as we know it

“…However, as shown by the pandemic, it might also be necessary to take actions for mitigating supply chain interruptions as well as to build up resilience against future disruptions, in particular as it is uncertain but possible that a second global lockdown occurs (Alicke et al 2020). In order to enhance supply chain resilience, further aspects can be considered (Alicke et al 2020;Ivanov 2020;Ivanov, Dolgui 2020;Jansen 2009;Sheffi 2017Sheffi , 2006 1. Supply Chain Transparency builds on an inventory of critical components and their suppliers and aims at the identification of alternative sourcing options and the creation of "multitier supply chains".…”