Issues and analysis of critical success factors for the sustainable initiatives in the supply chain during COVID- 19 pandemic outbreak in India: A case study

Abstract

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has severely affected the supply chain all over. A major challenge for the supply chain (SC) is to address this disruption risk and bring sustainability to SC. The objective of this paper is to identify the stakeholders' requirements and critical success factors (CSFs) for the sustainability initiative in SC during this pandemic situation. Three potential stakeholders' requirements and a total of 16 critical success factors have been identified by taking inputs from experts and decision-makers. Further, these critical factors are analyzed and ranked based on a hybrid quality function deployment (QFD)-best-worst methodology (BWM). The QFD method has been used to identify the stakeholder’ requirements. And, the BWM has been adopted to prioritize the CSFs. The scientific value of the study is the contribution of the framework model for the sustainable initiatives in the SC during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, identification of stakeholders’ requirements and CSFs, and prioritizes these CSFs. The top three most critical success factors are found to be social distancing, emergency logistics systems, and emergency backup facilities. The proposed framework provides a roadmap to operation and supply chain managers to come up with good solutions for sustainability initiatives in the supply chain during and after the pandemic outbreak.