There are many definitions of agility. A supply chain can be defined as agile, when it is flexible and responds quickly to customer needs. Agility can also be seen as a measure to mitigate supply chain risks, building on this thought Dani and Ranganathan (2008) developed a model to mitigate risks using the concept of agility .
I am often astounded by the fact how many great articles I haven’t read yet. A good scientific paper contains an comprehensive description of the methodologies used, a theoretical foundation and literature review from which hypothesis are drawn, which are then confirmed or rejected in the course of the paper. And of course, it is always a plus to actually find some results in the course of the analysis.
Yet another paper on risk mitigation strategies. This time: How to reduce risks by improving confidence. You can find the complete paper of today in the web.
In this article the authors, Giunipero and Eltantawy (2004) explore situational factors which contribute to the company’s level of investment into risk management activities. These factors are:
I already reviewed one of the articles of Zsidisin (Perception of Supply Risk). Today I had a look at an article about how the purchasing organization is involved in the supply chain risk management activities.
Submitted by Daniel Dumke on Sun, 2011-03-13 13:22
Paper
Impact of Demographics on Supply Chain Risk Management Practice
Published In:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Master Thesis
This is somewhat of the fifth contribution to my series on doctoral dissertations, apart from not being a doctoral thesis but a master thesis on Supply Chain Risk Management. Nonetheless, an immense effort and dedication is spent on these works only to find the results hidden in the libraries. So the goal is raise interest in the research of my peers.
Setting up the right partnerships is hard to do. There are multiple levels to the decision with which companies to setup formal relations and how deep this relationship should be? Christopher and Jüttner (2000) develop a framework for managing partnerships. The full paper can be found here.
There are many obstacles to information sharing in a supply chain. Confidentiality is probably one of the biggest issues, but there are others not so obvious like antitrust regulations, the timeliness and accuracy of the provided information, differing technologies between the supply chain partners or a mismatch in the alignment of incentives. Therefore trust and cooperation become critical ingredients in a supply chain partnership.
Uncertainty can be categorized in continuous risk, more slowly changing patterns, and disruptions, which describe abrupt changes in a system.
Tomlin (2006) investigates the question which supply chain strategies perform best when dealing with the later.
Mitigation vs. Contingency Planning
From case studies analyzed in literature the author first deducts disruption management strategies used in practices. The summary can be seen in figure 1.
