Article Review of Peer Reviewed Journal

¶ … Resilience in Supply Chain Management- A Critical Review

Resilience to any management issue involving economic and social relevance especially in a dynamic and fast changing environment requires empirical research data to substantiate and authenticate the mitigation and pre-emptive formats designed. Most studies that appropriate risks have done so based on incidences and are thus effect-based (reactive) rather than being original considerations. As such, most studies prepare organizations for situations that have already occurred, which may not be enough, as the nature of risks, calamities and place of occurrence are changing rapidly. The article under consideration does well to incorporate most of the important elements to create a framework for building resilience in a Supply Chain Management organization.

This article integrates the implications of the business-resilience research concept for management, and explains the way business resilience practice will be able to aid organizations in managing their international supply chains within a progressively unstable business setting. Preliminary research resulted in the creation of the Supply Chain Resilience Assessment & Management (SCRAM) tool that was validated using information from seven international service and manufacturing companies. The mixed methods approach of triangulation was applied for identifying specific links between controllable capability and integral vulnerability elements, allowing for production of capability improvement recommendations to conquer high-priority weaknesses. Subsequent to the preliminary research stage, a process was established for tool implementation, employed in over twenty business units. Further insights were obtained via meetings and discourse with other companies (Fiksel, Polyviou, Croxton, & Pettit, 2014). A major omission, to complete the perception appears in the lack of considering the consumer-side resilience structure that is vital to any business enterprise. Most of the framework emphasis is on supply-side management, mitigation and rebuilding. Secondly, the article fails to segment the vulnerabilities as macro, micro and meso economic issues, instead clubbing them all under a general heading. Contingency plan for each measure of risk may vary considerably. For example, the article does not place required accent on small effective measures of sensible use, recycling and reuse of essential commodities like water and fuel (Rose & Krausmann, 2013).

Different grades of vulnerabilities exist for a firm (including turbulence) when it operates within a context typified by continual change. For instance, consumer demand fluctuates, fluctuations are present in currencies, or geopolitical disturbances constitute a threat for operations. Sensitivity is a second vulnerability, existing when an organization needs cautiously controlled environments for ensuring integrity of process and product. For instance, fragile or restricted materials are utilized, or safety risks are inevitable in the production or delivery process. The decrease or increase in resilience is correlated to the decrease or increase of capabilities and vulnerabilities. This does not imply that organizations need to secure their operations such that they are impossible to infiltrate, in a futile effort at reducing their vulnerabilities to nil. The article makes an important distinction between anticipated and actual value of risk when it states that- A firm with high-risk exposure and inadequate capabilities for handling them are undoubtedly at risk. The limitation thereto- a firm investing overly high capabilities, highly disproportionate to their real risk exposure, ends up tying its finances, efforts, and time, which could have served better elsewhere, resulting in waste, decreased profits, and higher expenses. Firms must aim for balance in resilience: a rational weighting of protection from and exposure to risks (Christopher, & Peck, 2004). While the article correctly (and aptly) describes the need of flexibility and discretion in resource management corresponding to various plausible risks, it could also have suggested incorporating elasticity in the existing conditions, thereby ensuring continuity of business with the same partners (reliability, loyalty and bonding), tools or suppliers instead of substituting them by sheer economic consideration. Such frameworks lay emphasis on sustainability and sensitivity that are important components of resilience, as noted in the article (Rose & Krausmann, 2013).

Limitations and Further Research

Out of the evidence this narrow but growing pool of literature incorporates, the necessity of a structured perspective of risk management in connection with supply chains was detected. The paper establishes a framework to improve risk identification in supply chains, based on an approach of process control, helping the manager with ascertaining risk sources, concerning their positioning corresponding to the central firm. The work's authors understand that other supply chain risk division and identification approaches are put forward in cited works, however, not using a normative management approach, as is intended. The route-map supply-chain buoyancy frame is proposed in the very same spirit, employing, as suitable, popular demand-guided principles of managing supply chains, along with valuable perspectives taken from other domains, including financial risk management. The probability of costs incurred in maintenance of supply chain severance 'just-in-case' is recognized. However, an evaluation of long- and short- range costs linked to measures, (e.g., real alternatives, thinking, application), is left to other researchers to investigate more thoroughly. Further, quantifying and measurement modules of risk and resilience do not find desired attention in the article. Quantifying is generally a good base to start the management, mitigation or corrective impetus and importance towards an issue. Thus, the article cannot be accepted as a standalone guide to risk management (Rose & Krausmann, 2013). In the same way, the precise compromises between diverse risks linked to buy or make decisions, cost-linked single sourcing benefits, or quality, against likely losses in case of failure of supply source, extend beyond this work's scope. Other research works need to address these key bottom-line issues. Study authors acknowledge that these issues will eventually require a resolution if the business community willingly gives up short-term optimisation of cost for sustainable, enhanced resilience covering the entire supply chain (Christopher, & Peck, 2004).