Ranking of Critical Risk Factors in the Indian Automotive Supply Chain Using TOPSIS with Entropy Weighted Criterions

Abstract

To survive and grow in today’s world characterized by fierce competition and surrounded by uncertain environments, manufacturing industries are forced to manage internal and external supply chain (SC) disruptions to achieve operational excellence. Automotive manufacturing industries have multiple collaborations at various operations levels, making a complex network of linked activities. Any unprecedented event of slight to severe magnitude adversely hampers various workday activities in the organization. Multiple researchers have cited the susceptibility of the automotive supply chain to numerous risks. Mitigation of risks is vital as complete elimination is impossible on many occasions. This research aims to find out risk factors through a literature review coupled with input from industry experts. After identifying risks, this article ranks the risk factors critical to the automotive SC based on the severity of adverse impacts by considering five different criterions using Technique for Ordered Preference and Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). The weight of the evaluation criteria was calculated based on the entropy method. This study identifies thirteen critical risk factors (CRFs), and ranking tools prioritizes “Delay risks,” “Management risks,”, “Supplier risks,” “Employees risks,” and “Inappropriate tools and techniques risks” as the top five CRFs. These research findings will support managers and policymakers framing risk mitigation plans to achieve operational excellence in the entire SC and use the systematic modeling approach to identify CRFs with adverse impacts.