Development of a supply risk management framework based on casual relations of risk factors

Research Project, 2021 – 2022

With this research project, we aim to connect three research areas of supply risk management, analytics capability, and operations research to address the need to increase the resilience of supply chains, which has been proven to be of grave importance through the experiences from recent disruptions such as the Covid19 pandemic, or the East Asian Tsunami and earthquakes. In the aftermath of all these events, companies experienced the need to secure their supply and increase their supply chain visibilities and substitutability. On the other hand, advanced analytics such as those that can combine different sources and types of data show much promise in increasing this visibility and thus, tightening the supply chain and supporting supply risk management decisions. Yet, in our previous studies, we saw few, if any, companies or research studies successfully implementing such applications in procurement. Explanations for such low application levels are the complexities in access to relevant and reliable sources of data, the coupling of the analytics to interpretable outputs, and the increase of awareness in the usage of them. 

So, with this project, we aim to use a multiple-phase interdisciplinary approach to utilize the modeling capability of operations research and connect risk management and supply management.