Evaluating supply chain network resilience considering disruption propagation

Abstract

Amidst the current global disruptions on supply chains, having a comprehensive framework for evaluating supply chain resilience is of utmost importance. However, existing techniques suffer from limitations such as a lack of comprehensiveness and failure to account for the ripple effect, leading to biased assessments. To address these challenges, this study proposes a comprehensive evaluation scheme that quantitatively describes the state of supply chain resilience under disruption propagation. The proposed approach introduces six metrics to assess the absorptive, adaptive, and restorative capacities of resilience. By considering these metrics, a disruption/recovery simulation procedure is employed to evaluate the resilience of three network structures widely found in real-world supply chain problems. The results indicate that networks exhibiting scale-free structure offer enhanced reliability, responsiveness, persistence, and quicker recovery time. To validate the applicability of the proposed approach in assessing supply chain resilience, it is implemented on two real-world supply chain networks. Additionally, this study uncovers the limitations of single-measure methodologies, which overlook the multi-faceted nature of resilience. It highlights the shortcomings of approaches that fail to accurately reflect resilience behaviour in the presence of ripple effects. These findings emphasize the significance of adopting a more comprehensive evaluation scheme, as proposed in this study, to achieve accurate results.