Supply Chain Risk Management: A Case Study of Military Airplane Components

Abstract

Recently in the competitive and uncertain business environment, organizations face increasing different kinds of supply chain risks. Literature shows that managing supply risks is increasingly challenging, because sources of supply chain risks are various and some of them may be even hardly to assess in terms of the probability and severity. However, supply chain risk management is a relatively new and unexplored area of management researches, so limited amount of studies has been conducted. As such, our first research purpose is to review prior studies, providing a conceptual framework for our study and further investigations. Moreover, most researches are typically focused on the business supply chains. As the military organization is mission-oriented, existing evidence may be not suitable for us to extend works into assessing military supply risks. Therefore, a research gap exists in supply chain risk management and military organization. Our second objective aims to discuss supply risk-related issues in military, particularly focusing on the supply chain of military airplane components. Due to the exploratory nature of the research, a case study method would be an appropriate method, providing depth insights into a little known phenomenon. We have two contributions as follows: (1) we review the prior studies and organize the key concepts of supply chain risks and supply chain risk management, providing a research basis for further investigations and (2) we use the case study information to identify the hierarchic formation of risk categories, sources, and their effects in supply chain of military airplane components.