Guest Editors:

Alexandre Dolgui, IMT Atlantique, LS2N - CNRS, La Chantrerie, 4 rue Alfred Kastler, 44307 Nantes, France

E-Mail: alexandre.dolgui@imt-atlantique.fr
 

Dmitry Ivanov (Managing Guest Editor), Berlin School of Economics and Las, Supply Chain and Operations Management, 10825 Berlin, Germany Phone: +49 30 308771155; E-Mail: divanov@hwr-berlin.de

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David Simchi-Levi, MIT Data Science Lab., MIT, Massachusetts, Avenue Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA

E-Mail: dslevi@mit.edu

 

Key dates

Deadline for Manuscript Submission: 31 May 2024
Final Decision Due: 28 February 2025
Tentative Publication Date: mid 2025

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Papers can be submitted any time prior to the deadline, and will be evaluated and published online on a rolling basis. The Special Issue in print will appear once the review process of all submissions is completed.

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Submit here: https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/tprs20

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About the special issue

In February 2020, when COVID was mostly in China, Pierre Haren and Professor Simchi-Levi published a paper in HBR (Haren and Simchi-Levi, 2020) where they predicted “that the peak of the impact of Covid-19 on global supply chains will occur in mid-March, forcing thousands of companies to throttle down or temporarily shut assembly and manufacturing plants in the U.S. and Europe.” And this is exactly what happened, see for example the New York Time article of March 18, 2020 “Automakers to Close Factories in North America”. In April of that year (Simchi-Levi and Simchi-Levi, 2020) Professor Simchi-Levi and Edith Simchi-Levi published a follow-up paper where they said “We Need a Stress Test for Critical Supply Chains.” And the paper identifies one important methodology that industry can apply, using two concepts. The first is Time-to-Recover, the time it would take for a particular node in the supply chain — a supplier facility, a distribution center, or a transportation hub — to be restored to full functionality after a disruption. The second is Time-to-Survive the maximum duration that the supply chain can match supply with demand after a facility disruption.  Importantly, the 2022 Economic Report of the US President, see reference, published in April 2022, refers to the need for Supply Chain Stress Tests, Time-to-Recover and Time-to-Survive, and cites two papers in this area, Simchi-Levi (2020) and Simchi-Levi and Simchi-Levi (2020).

 

The need for supply chain stress test is now clear!  The turbulent years of pandemic and geopolitical tensions, product shortages and freight bottlenecks, progressing inflation and climate change have adversely affected supply chains, with deep uncertainty still prevailing. Despite all the disruptions, supply chains could emerge more competitive, resilient and viable if implementing new principles in the network designs. As noted in Ivanov and Dolgui (2022b), “the existing supply chain designs have been developed predominantly by cost efficiency-oriented thinking due to a relative stability in demand and supply over decades which led to the domination of lean and formation of a crisis-free management mentality, belief in having risks and uncertainty under control, long-term planning, rigid and lean network structures and planning paradigms.” Ivanov and Dolgui (2022) echo that “for decades, the fundamental assumption of continuous (with some temporary fluctuations and disruptions) availability of resources to satisfy demand has been considered in supply chain designs as taken for granted” - all that changed rapidly over a few years.

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The existing supply chain designs are not always capable to cope with the “new normal” unless they are modified and adapted every day, which creates tremendous coordination efforts and leads to time delays and shortages. We hypothesize that viability and adaptability should become central ideas of next generation supply chain designs, which are expected to be dynamically adaptable and structurally changeable (Ivanov, 2022) considering from a value-creation perspective (Ivanov 2022b).

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To understand the resilience and viability of supply chain designs, their stress-tests are needed. The real-life stress-tests such as COVID-19 pandemic and geopolitical tensions revealed new insights about resilience and viability of existing supply chains. In this setting, further research is needed for understanding resilience and viability and developing new methods for stress-tests of supply chains well before a real shock hits and disrupts structures and operations (Simchi-Levi and Simchi-Levi, 2020). A number of questions arises from practice and literature analysis and motivates this Special Issue, e.g.:

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• What methods can be used to stress-test a supply chain?

• What do we understand as an optimal design of a supply chain network – the most efficient, the most resilient, or the most adaptable and viable one?

• How can supply chains be designed to be both adaptable and efficient?

• How can we design and manage global supply chain networks given the situational availability of some regions for production/logistics activities because of quarantines or climate change-driven severe and long natural disasters?

• How can digital technology and data analytics be utilized to enhance supply chain resilience and viability?

• What is the role of adaptability in the resilience and viability of value creation systems, and how can inherent adaptability be implemented while maintaining profitability?

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The focus of this Special Issue is on the stress-test methods for supply chain design and development of reconfigurable and adaptable supply chain designs rather than on probability prediction and anticipation of disruptions. We pose that in the “new normal” setting of a mega-crisis, supply chain design optimization should be driven by ideas of shock-resistance, viability, survivability, and adaptability creating an ability to operate and survive under severe shocks through embedded adaptability. We consider optimization and simulation methodologies to be best suited for research related to this Special Issue; however, other methodologies can also be considered if they account for some real-life context and are in line with IJPR policy (real-life context, rigor methodology, contribution to the ongoing theoretical debate, and managerial insights).

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Areas of interest

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The shortage economy

Supply chain and operations management has been developed for decades under the fundamental assumption of continuous availability (with some temporary fluctuations and disruptions) of resources to satisfy demand. Ivanov and Dolgui (2022) conceptualized major implications of the shortage economy on supply chain and operations management. They note that “under extreme shocks and long-lasting disruptions, supply chains and operations face long-term shortages of components, energy, capital, and labor, as well as rapidly rising prices. These long-term resource shortages and risks of hyper-inflation pose novel and unexpected challenges potentially leading to global ripple effects. The trend of shortages in all the resources needed for production and logistics operations in supply chains can be observed. Shortages can be seen in almost all the resources such as labor, material, energy, and capital. Moreover, local shortages lead to global ripple effects, i.e. disruption propagations across global supply chain networks. For example, semiconductor shortage has caused global ripple effects and tremendous problems in the supply chains of automotive and electronics industries. The global supply chains experienced an unprecedented shortage of transportation capacities in 2020-2022 caused by the imbalances in inter-continental logistics flows limiting the number of available containers and resulting in an increase in freight prices, product shortages, and overall destabilization of supply chains”.

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Viable supply chain designs and intertwined supply networks

According to Ivanov and Dolgui (2020), ‘viability is a behavior-driven property of a system with structural dynamics. It considers system evolution through disruption-reaction balancing in the open system context. The viability analysis is survival-oriented at a long-term scale’. Ivanov (2020) defines viability as an ‘ability of a supply chain to maintain itself and survive in a changing environment through a redesign of structures and re-planning of performance with long-term impacts’.

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The viable supply chain model and its associated frameworks were proposed by Ivanov (2020) and comprise the supply chain itself; the intertwined supply network (ISN), which is an ‘entirety of interconnected supply chains which, in their integrity secure the provision of society and markets with goods and services’ (Ivanov and Dolgui 2020); a digital supply chain, which represents a combination of the physical SC; a cyber-physical system and a digital supply chain twin; and a business ecosystem responsible for securing society’s needs in line with natural, economic, and governance interests.

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Ruel et al. (2021) elaborated in detail on commonalities and differences between resilience and viability of supply chains. In particular, they noted that “supply chain viability can be viewed from an overarching adaptation perspective that extends the supply chain resilience notion of a closed-system, “bounce-back” view, with a viable, open supply chain system perspective incorporating "bounce-forward-and-adapt” options”.

The principal ideas of the viable supply chain and ISN are adaptable structural supply chain designs for situational supply-demand allocations and, most importantly, the establishment and control of adaptive mechanisms for transitions between the structural designs (Ivanov 2020). The viable supply chain model can help firms guide their decisions about the recovery and rebuilding of their supply chains after global, long-term crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Ivanov and Keskin (2023) summarized some recent contributions in the development of supply chain viability theory.

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Reconfigurable Supply Chain

The reconfigurable supply chain spans three specific features: active behaviour of network elements, networking effects across multiple structures and their dynamics (i.e., organizational, information, financial, technological, energy), and network complexity (i.e., multi-echelon supply chains). The reconfigurable supply chains are characterized by structural and process variety, which is beneficial for supply chain resilience (Dolgui et al., 2020).

 

Topics of interest (but not limited to):

• Stress-testing supply chains for resistance to material, information, financial and energy flow disruptions

• Stress-testing supply chains for future price rises,

• Stress-testing supply chains for supply and transportation capacity unavailability

• Reconfigurable supply chain designs

• Combination of network analysis and optimization methods in supply chain design

• Network design and supplier selection with considerations of hedging instruments against energy, labor, capital, information, and material shortages as well as hyper-inflation

• Global ripple effect-resistant network designs

• Supply chain and cross-industry adaptation in the context of intertwined supply networks

• Supply chain design with consideration of alternative energy sources at facilities and transportation routes

• Supply chain design and planning under inflation and shortage of resources

• Digital twins for stress-testing supply chains

• Supply chain as-a-service / Cloud supply chain

• Safety stock planning under extreme disruptions in demand and lead time (e.g. massive quarantines or long-term natural disasters) 

• Contracting under extremal surges in demand and lead-time and long-term shortage risks

 

References and indicative studies

• 2022 Economic Report of the President. USA. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ERP-2022.pdf

• Aldrighetti R., Battini D., Ivanov D., Zennaro I. (2021). Costs of resilience and disruptions in supply chain network design models: a review and future research directions. International Journal of Production Economics, 235, 108103.

• Dolgui, A., Ivanov, D., & Sokolov, B. (2018). Ripple effect in the supply chain: an analysis and recent literature. International Journal of Production Research. 56(1–2), 414–430.

• Dolgui, A., Ivanov, D., Sokolov, B. (2020) Reconfigurable supply chain: The X-Network. International Journal of Production Research, 58(13), 4138-4163.

• Feizabadi J, Gligor DM, Choi TY (2021) Examining the resiliency of intertwined supply networks: a jury-rigging perspective. International Journal of Production Research, URL http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1080/00207543.2021.1977865.

• Haren, P., and Simchi-Levi D. (February 2020). How Coronavirus will impact the global supply chain by mid-March, Harvard Business Review, February 28, 2020. Published online: How Coronavirus Could Impact the Global Supply Chain by Mid-March (hbr.org)

• Hosseini, S., Ivanov, D., & Dolgui, A. (2019). Review of quantitative methods for supply chain resilience analysis. Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, 125, 285-307.

• Ivanov D. (2020). Viable Supply Chain Model: Integrating agility, resilience and sustainability perspectives – lessons from and thinking beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. Annals of Operations Research, DOI: 10.1007/s10479-020-03640-6

• Ivanov D., Dolgui A. (2022b). Stress testing supply chains and creating viable ecosystems. Operations Management Research, 15, 475-486.

• Ivanov D., Dolgui A., Sokolov B. (2022). Cloud Supply Chain: Integrating Industry 4.0 and Digital Platforms in the “Supply Chain-as-a-Service”. Transportation Research – Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, 160, 102676.

• Ivanov, D. (2022b). Lean Resilience: AURA (Active Usage of Resilience Assets) Framework for Post-COVID-19 Supply Chain Management. International Journal of Logistics Management, 33(4), 1196-1217.

• Ivanov, D., & Dolgui, A. (2020). Viability of intertwined supply networks: Extending the supply chain resilience angles towards survivability: A position paper motivated by COVID-19 outbreak. International Journal of Production Research, 58(10), 2904–2915.

• Ivanov, D., & Dolgui, A. (2022). The Shortage Economy and its Implications for Supply Chain and Operations Management. International Journal of Production Research, 60(24), 7141-7154.

• Ivanov, D. (2022). The Industry 5.0 Framework: Viability-based Integration of the Resilience, Sustainability, and Human-centricity Perspectives. International Journal of Production Research, DOI:10.1080/00207543.2022.2118892.

• Ivanov D., Keskin B (2023). Post-pandemic adaptation and development of supply chain viability theory. Omega, 116, 102806.

• Ivanov D. (2021). Supply Chain Viability and the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Conceptual and Formal Generalisation of Four Major Adaptation Strategies. International Journal of Production Research, 59(12), 3535-3552.

• Liu, M., Liu, Z., Chu, F., Dolgui, A., Chu, C., Zheng, F. (2022). An optimization approach for multi-echelon supply chain viability with disruption risk minimization. Omega, 112, 102683.

• Maccarthy B., Ivanov D. (2022). Digital supply chain. Elsevier, Amsterdam.

• Münch C., Hartmann E. (2022). Transforming resilience in the context of a pandemic: results from a cross-industry case study exploring supply chain viability. International Journal of Production Research, https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2022.2029610.

• Rozhkov, M., Ivanov, D., Blackhurst, J., Nair, A. (2022). Adapting supply chain operations in anticipation of and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Omega, 110, 102635.

• Ruel, S., El Baz J., Ivanov, D., Das, A. (2021). Supply Chain Viability: Conceptualization, Measurement, and Nomological Validation. Annals of Operations Research, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-021-03974-9

• Simchi-Levi D, Simchi-Levi E (April 2020) We need a stress test for critical supply chains. Harvard Business Review April 28, 2020. Published on line: We Need a Stress Test for Critical Supply Chains (hbr.org)

• Simchi-Levi, D. April 2020. “Three Scenarios to Guide Your Global Supply Chain Recovery.” Sloan Management Review, April 13, 2020. Published online: Three Scenarios to Guide Your Global Supply Chain Recovery (mit.edu)

• Sodhi MS, Tang CS, Willenson ET (2021) Research opportunities in preparing supply chains of essential goods for future pandemics. International Journal of Production Research, https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2021.1884310

• Wang M, Yao J (2021) Intertwined supply network design under facility and transportation disruption from the viability perspective. International Journal of Production Research, URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2021.1930237.