This time I’d like to have a look at supply chain risk management from a strategic point of view: What are the prerequisites in the design and culture of an organization to mitigate supply chain risks? The title of the article I review today is: “The organizational antecedents of a firm’s supply chain agility for risk mitigation and response”.
Method
The authors use structural equation modeling technique to establish the relations within their model (figure 1).
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 .
Today I introduce you to the process of measuring agility in a supply chain. Agility is a major concept in the research of the last 10 years or so. I already have written some articles on this topic:
Experts from research and business alike argue that within the last decades consumers have grown to be a more demanding factor for supply chain management. At the same time manufacturing and supply chain strategies adapted to this development (from lean to agile, see Christopher and Towill, 2000).
In the following I summarize the major points of the article “Responsive supply chain: A competitive strategy in a networked economy” by Gunasekaran, Lai and Cheng (2008).
Responsive Supply Chain (RSC)
The authors define a RSC to contain both aspects of Agile Manufacturing and Supply Chain Management. They argue, that both complement each other in the objective to improve organizational competitiveness.
I have been reading a lot of interesting articles lately, hence I could not post as often as I wanted. I found an article by van der Vorst and Beulens (2002; “Identifying sources of uncertainty to generate supply chain redesign strategies”) which opens a new perspective on the SCRM issue. I am going to publish a review later this week and link it here.
Today I want to have a look at “Design and operation of distribution centres within agile Supply Chains” by Peter Baker (2008; Cranfield University).
The main part of the article describes the results of a survey conducted with nine business units to assess challenges and measures for supply chain agility.
Agility
is defined as “management concept centered around responsiveness to dynamic and turbulent markets and customer demand”. But it also involves exploiting these changing markets to take advantage from it.
