If people talk about disruptions and network effects within the supply chain, the associations are most often negative.
The picture of an automotive/just-in-time supply chain comes to mind, where a small screw from a distant supplier did not get delivered in time and all production processes within the whole network suddenly come to an involuntary halt.
But on the other hand there are companies profiting from these smaller and larger disruptions: competition.
The Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model has been developed by the Supply Chain Council to provide a best-practice framework for supply chain management practices and processes with the goal to increase performance.
SCOR
The SCOR model consists of five major process categories: Plan, Source, Make, Deliver and Return
Submitted by Daniel Dumke on Wed, 2011-01-05 13:59
Paper
On The Quantitative Definition of Risk
Published In:
Risk Analysis
Year:
1981
What is risk anyway?
I read this paper already some time ago. It is very important to have a clear definition of the terms used in research. But from my previous experience I know that also in business a clear understanding of the different aspects of risks is important to stay consistent.
This article considers the design of robust supply chains from the viewpoint of exception handling. Disruptions of the supply chain happen all the time. Smaller disruptions like quality issues are part of the daily business; but a look at the recent ten years shows that large disruptions, happen more often as well (think of terrorist attacks or earthquakes). “Thus, exception management is an important issue in global supply chain networks.”
Probably most companies source at least some parts for their products from global sources. This could be the steel from Australia, electronics from Taiwan or cloth from India. The reasons for international sourcing usually include cost and quality, which might be superior compared to local sources.
On the other hand longer shipment ways and less direct access and control may also increase the risks of quality failures, delays or even disruptions.
A large proportion of the efforts in supply chain risk management focus on the supply side, even though, using common definitions of supply chain management, the supply chain of course not only contains the suppliers but also the customers down to the end-customer.
Focussing on the supply side, Hallikas et al. 2005 studied the different classes of supplier relationships and what risk mitigation strategies might be effective with these classes. This classification can help both affected parties, in understanding the effects of risk on their relationship.
Today will be a one-article-long-excursion in the world of production planning models.
Supply chain management of course should take a high level view of the supply and demand networks, nonetheless there is probably no supply chain which will work without physical products and most even have one or more at their core.
Continuing with on with articles on general Systems Design and foundational articles, today I would like to talk about Conway’s seminal paper on “How Do Committees Invent” from 1968. If you want to read the paper completely, you can do so on Conway’s web page.
In his article Conway describes system design at its most generic level. Be it a system to prevent natural disasters or a new product of a company.
