Business continuity-inspired resilient supply chain network design

ABSTRACT

Supply chains are prone to several operational and disruption risks. In order to design a resilient supply chain network capable of responding to such potential risks suitably, this paper proposes a novel framework for the business continuity-inspired resilient supply chain network design (BCRSCND) problem, which includes three steps. First, four resilience dimensions including Anticipation, Preparation, Robustness, and Recovery are considered to quantify the resilience score of each facility using a multi-criteria decision-making technique and considering a comprehensive set of resilience strategies. In the second step, the critical processes and their business continuity metrics (which are vital for supply chain continuity), are identified. The outputs of the first two steps provide the inputs of a novel two-stage mixed possibilistic-stochastic programing (TSMPSP) model. The model aims to design a multi-echelon, multi-product resilient supply chain network under both operational and disruption risks. The proposed TSMPSP model allows decision makers to incorporate their risk attitudes into the design process. After converting the original TSMPSP model into the crisp counterpart, several sensitivity analyses are conducted on different features of hypothetical disruptions (i.e. their severity, likelihood and location) and DM’s risk attitudes from which useful managerial insights are provided.

KEYWORDS:

• Resilience management
• supply chain design
• business continuity management
• two-stage stochastic programming
• possibilistic programming

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jafar Namdar

Jafar Namdar is an PhD student of Business Analytics and Information System at the Tippie College of Business, University of Iowa. He received his M.Sc. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Tehran, Iran. His current research interests include: supply chain risk and disruptions; supply chain resilience; supply network analysis; and supply network design. Namdar has articles published in such journals as International Journal of Production Research (IJPR) and International Journal of Engineering (IJE). He serves as a referee for IJPR and International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management (IJPDLM) and is a member of Informs and POMS.

S. Ali Torabi

S. Ali Torabi (PhD, MSc, BSc) is a Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management at the School of Industrial Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran. His main research interests include: Supply Chain Resilience, Humanitarian Logistics, Sustainable Operations and Retail Supply Chain Planning. Professor Torabi has published several papers in peer-reviewed international journals such as EJOR, IJPR, IJPE, TRE, JORS, COR, FSS and CIE.

Navid Sahebjamnia

Navid Sahebjamnia is an Assistant Professor of Supply Chain Management in University of Science and Technology of Mazandaran, Behshahr, Iran. His areas of interest include Supply Chain Management, Disaster Operations and Crisis Management, Sustainable Operations Management, Uncertainty Programming, and Multi-Objective Decision Support. He has contributed to around 30 journal articles in peer-reviewed journals such as EJOR, IJPE, DSS, and IJPR.

Ninad Nilkanth Pradhan

Ninad Nilkanth Pradhan is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the University of Tennessee and Research Liaison for the Center for Advanced Systems Research and Education (CASRE). His graduate research encompassed robotics and computer vision applications for service robots and unmanned aerial vehicles. His research at the University of Tennessee focuses on optimisation, computer vision, risk analysis, and machine learning algorithms for manufacturing and supply chain environments. As the Research Liaison for CASRE, he works extensively on formalisation of applied research within the center, facilitation of research partnerships, and graduate student mentoring.