Supply chain resilience
Supply chain resilience is "the capacity of a supply chain to persist, adapt, or transform in the face of change".[1] It is a popular concept within contemporary supply chain management.
Origins
[edit]Around the turn of the millennium, supply chain risk management practitioners attempted to transfer traditional risk management approaches from the "company" system to the "supply chain" system.[2] However, the scalability of traditional risk management steps (identification, assessment, treatment and monitoring of risks) quickly reaches its limits: while it is entirely possible to identify all conceivable risks within a company; a supply chain often consists of thousands of companies – the attempt to identify all possible risks in this system is therefore much more complex, if not impossible.[1] It has therefore been argued that the complexity of supply chains requires complementary measures such as supply chain resilience.[3] Resilience is the ability to cope with all sorts of change, and is thus less about the identification of specific risks but more about the characteristics of the system.[4]
Interpretations
[edit]Engineering resilience
[edit]For a long time, the interpretation of resilience in the sense of engineering resilience prevailed in supply chain management.[1] It is implied here that supply chain is a closed system that can be controlled, similar to a system designed and planned by engineers (e.g. subway network).[5] According to C. S. Holling (1996), engineering resilience focuses on stability near an equilibrium steady state, where resistance to disturbance and the speed of return to equilibrium are used as measures of resilience.[1] The expectations placed on managers come close to those placed on engineers, who should react quickly in the event of a disturbance in order to restore the system's ideal and original state as quickly as possible.[6] A popular implementation of this idea in supply chain management is given by measuring the time-to-survive and the time-to-recover of the supply chain, allowing to identify weak points in the system.[7] Acting like an engineer by redesigning the supply chain like on the drawing board, often by creating redundancies (e.g. multiple sourcing), strengthens resilience. In the short term, a supply chain can be viewed as a relatively rigid system. The idea of persistence of a supply chain that follows from engineering resilience therefore makes sense in the short term. However, this approach has mid to long-term limits.
Socio-ecological resilience
[edit]Social-ecological resilience goes back to ecological resilience, adding to it human decision-makers and their social interactions.[8] A supply chain is thus interpreted as a social-ecological system that – similar to an ecosystem (e.g. forest) – is able to constantly adapt to external environmental conditions.[5] In this framework, the supply chain is not interpreted as a system that needs to be stabilized in a fixed state (focus: persistence), but as a fluid system or even as a fluid process that interacts with the rest of the world (focus: adaptation or even transformation).[1]
Examples of disruption and response
[edit]Recent studies and data have examined how European Union firms responded to significant supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, maritime transport issues, and geopolitical conflicts. These events exposed the vulnerabilities of EU supply chains, particularly their reliance on foreign imports.[9] For example, in 2023 44% of EU firms who imported from China experienced transport and logistics challenges, while only 22% of the firms that imported solely within the EU reported similar numbers.[10]
In response to challenges like these, trade patterns have shifted. The share of EU exports directed to the US increased to 21% in 2023, compared to a 14% in 2010. This is in order to mitigate risk and enhance supply chain resilience.[10]
A UN General Assembly Foreign Ministers' dialogue in 2026 raised concerns about the disruptive impact of weather extremes "including record July sea surface temperatures, the warmest July on record for North America, Africa and Asia, and sustained heatwaves in Europe" on supply chains and agricultural production, promising to revisit these issues in future foreign minister meetings.[11]
See also
[edit]Literature
[edit]- Sheffi, Yosef (2007). The resilient enterprise: overcoming vulnerability for competitive advantage: [with a new preface for the paperback edition] (1. MIT paperback ed.). Cambridge, Mass. London: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0262693493.
- Walker, Brian H. (2020). "Resilience: what it is and is not". Ecology and Society. 25 (2) art11. Bibcode:2020EcSoc..25Tr.11W. doi:10.5751/ES-11647-250211.
- Wieland, Andreas; Durach, Christian F. (July 2021). "Two perspectives on supply chain resilience". Journal of Business Logistics. 42 (3): 315–322. doi:10.1111/jbl.12271. hdl:10398/0a703fa5-c14c-4c2a-b427-9640a30b6c09.
- Paravano, Alessandro; Locatelli, Giorgio; Trucco, Paolo (2025). "Drivers and Barriers in Shaping Resilience Projects: an Investigation in the Space Economy". IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management. 72: 2783–2797. Bibcode:2025ITEM...72.2783P. doi:10.1109/TEM.2025.3568298. hdl:11311/1297756.
References
[edit]- 1 2 3 4 5 Wieland, A., and Durach, C. F. (2021). Two perspectives on supply chain resilience. Journal of Business Logistics. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbl.12271
- ↑ Norrman, A., and Jansson, U. (2004). Ericsson's proactive supply chain risk management approach after a serious sub‐supplier accident. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 34(5), 434-456. https://doi.org/10.1108/09600030410545463
- ↑ see Walker, B. (2020), Resilience: what it is and is not. Ecology and Society, 25(2).
- ↑ Sheffi, Y. (2007), The resilient enterprise: overcoming vulnerability for competitive advantage. Zone Books.
- 1 2 Wieland, A. (2021). Dancing the supply chain: Toward transformative supply chain management. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 57(1), 58-73. https://doi.org/10.1111/jscm.12248
- ↑ See Holling, C. S. (1996), Engineering resilience versus ecological resilience. In: Engineering within ecological constraints, 31(1996), 32.
- ↑ Simchi‐Levi, D., Wang, H., and Wei, Y. (2018), Increasing supply chain robustness through process flexibility and inventory. Production and Operations Management, 27(8), 1476-1491.
- ↑ Folke, C. (2006). Resilience: The emergence of a perspective for social–ecological systems analyses. Global Environmental Change, 16(3), 253-267.
- ↑ Attinasi, Maria Grazia; Balatti, Mirco; Mancini, Michele; Metelli, Luca (2022-01-13). "Supply chain disruptions and the effects on the global economy". ECB Economic Bulletin.
- 1 2 Navigating supply chain disruptions: New insights into the resilience and transformation of EU firms. European Investment Bank. 2024-10-03. ISBN 978-92-861-5807-0.
- ↑ Press statement by co-hosts of the UNGA Foreign Ministers Dialogue on Climate Change and Ecosystem Degradation as National Security Risks, published on 24 September 2026, accessed on 29 September 2026