Framework for evaluating robustness of a supply network on the supply network risks

Abstract

A major concern of many global enterprises is to make their supply network robust, because enterprises' supply network should be robust in order to overcome the supply network risks. While many researches and practices proposed strategies for flexible management of supply network, especially for mitigating supply network risks, it is remains unclear how to evaluate the robustness of supply network. This paper studies how the flexibility strategies in a dynamic global market environment affect the robustness of supply network, and how an enterprise evaluates the robustness of its supply network based on the supply network risks. In this paper, framework for evaluating robustness of supply network, as well as types of flexibility strategies and supply network risks are proposed. The robustness of supply network is evaluated using fuzzy techniques. The input parameters of fuzzy functions are specified with mathematical models. Finally, to illustrate the proposed framework, numerical examples will be presented.