Dileep More

Supply chain flexibility: a state-of-the-art survey

Supply Chain Flexibility (SCF) is a complex, dynamic and multifaceted concept viewed from a strategic and customer perspective. In the present study, an elaborate literature review of SCF was carried out, which helped in encapsulating various research outcomes in a structured manner, wherein the available SCF publications were reviewed and salient features related to conceptual frameworks, empirical studies, field and case studies, modelling studies and Supply Chain (SC) performance measures, the assessment of SCF, etc., were brought out. The details presented in this paper would reveal several crucial issues for future research. This paper also recognises how several business practices such as lean SC, agile SC, responsive SC and resilient SC distinguish their real relationship to SCF. Lastly, several avenues for future work have been suggested, which will provide an impetus to strengthen the research in the field of SCF.

Business excellence through supply chain flexibility in Indian industries: an investigative study

Supply Chain Flexibility (SCF) has been a topic of interest for academicians and practitioners. It is evident from the published literature that this problem, poses considerable challenges to the various segments of the Supply Chain (SC). In order to be competitive, the Indian manufacturing industries have already started implementing flexibility in different segments of the SC by several means and ways. A survey was carried out among the Indian manufacturing organisations to learn about their experience and perceptions related to SCF. The issues of importance identified are the triggers (stimuli) which force an organisation to seek higher flexibility, the means (enablers) which facilitate the realisation of SCF and the hurdles (inhibitors) which hinder progress in SCF. The data collected clearly revealed that different organisations perceive SCF differently and also practice various policies. The data also analysed using ANOVA and Factor Analysis (FA) helped in establishing the various trends and perceptions that are in vogue. The details of the study, analysis and the results are presented in this paper.

Perspectives, practices and future of supply chain flexibility

Supply Chain Flexibility (SCF) has become more necessary than ever as it offers strategic advantage. The published literature bears a good testimony to this fact and several authors have proposed different viewpoints on SCF. The interest in the philosophies and perspectives of SCF has been growing and organisations of the world have been taking a number of initiatives governed by various paradigms evolving around lean, agility, responsiveness, robustness, etc. At the moment, there are several views on SCF and other organisational innovations, which may perhaps confound a student of SCF. The purpose of this paper is to present a consolidated account of various views expressed by academicians and practitioners by bringing to the fore, various research options available in the area of SCF. The paper also addresses the relevance of various forces and the role of dynamics in managing supply chain flexibility.

Managing Supply Chain Flexibility using an integrated approach of classifying, structuring and impact assessment

Flexibility in the Supply Chain (SC) has emerged as a new strategic tool to enhance business excellence. The exploitation of flexibility is vital in designing, planning and controlling SC system to improve an organisations ability to recover from disruptions. There are various types of SCF, each type comes in various forms and each of which can be implemented in different ways and with different costs. The topic of Supply Chain Flexibility (SCF) has drawn the attention of the researchers and practitioners over a decade. However, in literature, there is no evidence of any study focused on interdependency among various types of SCF types. An attempt has therefore been made to identify and analyse relationships among the SCF types, to establish contextual relationships among them to identify the factors that are relevant to various SCF types and to evaluate the dynamics among them. The details of the study are reported in this paper.

Benchmarking Supply Chain Flexibility using Data Envelopment Analysis

Organisations have been facing several disturbing events, problems and changes affecting overall performance of their Supply Chains (SCs). To be competitive by quickly responding to disruptions, building enough flexibility in SCs is emerging as a new business strategy. However, it is very difficult to identify how much flexibility is required in different functions of the SC, as it depends on the nature and level of uncertainty faced by the process, facility or organization. In this paper, SCF is logically attributed to a business function synonymously with the efficiency of the corresponding business unit, wherein the leveraging factors are treated as the inputs and the benefits as the outputs. Here, the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach is used as a benchmarking tool for deriving the advantage of optimisation in many ways.

Applying TOC thinking process tools in managing challenges of supply chain finance: a case study

The purpose of this paper is to examine the different challenges that confront supply chain finance (SCF) in Indian business environment, identify the core challenge and develop a concrete action plan to overcome it in an Indian organisation. An exclusive survey was carried out amongst Indian firms to ascertain the perceptions and experiences related to different SCF challenges. To identify the key challenge and prepare a road map to overcome it in an organisation, the five thinking process (TP) tools of the theory of constraints (TOC) were employed. The TP tools helped the organisation in the early stage of implementing SCF initiatives that guided the SCF manager before executing them. This paper is one of the first studies to address and analyse a survey on various challenges confronting SCF and present an integrated application of TP tools in solving a problem of SCF.

Analysis of the dynamics between supply chain flexibility and key management ratios

Managing flexibility in supply chains involves a variety of actions, at various stages of designing, using and improving the supply chain system. This problem has very close association with various financial factors in business and therefore with the Key Management Ratios (KMRs) which are of considerable interest to corporate managers. The language of money binds various segments of any supply chain, in which the operational managers are busy dealing with information flow and material flow, to facilitate the desired cash flow to happen. Business management ratios are considered as the guiding stars for corporate managers as they are believed to capture the real status of the business, under different scenarios. However, as far as the Supply Chain Flexibility (SCF) is concerned, these two issues are not discussed jointly. There are many types of supply chain flexibilities and various KMRs. It is perhaps difficult to establish generalised relationships between these two sets of entities. A study was carried out to assess the influence that may be exerted by various types of SCF on the elements of KMRs and eventually, the KMRs themselves, the findings of which are reported in this paper.

Strategic approach to manage supply chain flexibility: a proposal

Today’s Supply Chains (SCs) are operating in complex and competitive business environment. To adapt, reduce or eliminate stimuli (uncertainty, disturbances or changes), making the SC more flexible is emerging as a new strategic tool. In reality, SCs are managed by various performance measures and flexibility is one of them, which is being more focused by researchers and industry practitioners. However, Supply Chain Flexibility (SCF) has continued to be a major challenge to comprehend and put it into real practice. An attempt has been made to develop a flexibility scorecard focusing on the flexibility metric in a balanced way. The paper addresses the important issues of how to provide flexibility in SCs and develops a specific proposal based on a Balanced Scorecard (BSC) approach.

Investigation of supply chain flexibility using a forced field analysis – a case study

Todays supply chains are operating in complex, risky, ambiguous and uncertain business environments. Managers of supply chain (SC) are therefore under pressure to build high level of flexibility in the SC operations. However, supply chain flexibility (SCF) is a complex, dynamic, multifaceted, context specific and application-oriented concept, viewed from a strategic and customer perspective. SCF is not easy to comprehend and put into real practice, the foremost reason is the diverse nature of the three forces viz. stimuli, enablers and inhibitors and their dynamics in the SC. In this paper, an attempt has been made to investigate SCF from a company perspective, especially in the viewpoint of making SCF a reality. The relevant data collected from the organisation is used to analyse the dynamics among the three forces using force field analysis (FFA). The study appears to be promising in the point of view of developing a decision support system for managing SCF.