title: Supply chain network resilience
title: a guideline for investigating and adapting the structure of supply chain networks for resilience
titleType: Subtitle
Creators: name: Sahlmüller, Till
Publisher: name: University of Muenster, Institutional Repository MIAMI
Year: 2025
Subjects: subject: 330 Economics

description: Ereignisse der letzten Jahre wie die Corona-Pandemie oder die Blockade des Suez Kanals haben gezeigt wie störungsempfindlich moderne Lieferketten sind. Bestehend aus einem komplexen Netz an Zulieferern und Produktionsstandorten wird es nahezu unmöglich konkrete Risiken zu identifizieren und zu beseitigen. Stattdessen ist es wichtig die Resilienz von Lieferketten zu stärken, welche es ihnen erlaubt die direkten Folgen von Störungen abzumildern und sich schnell von den negativen Konsequenzen zu erholen. Diese Dissertation untersucht das Konzept der Lieferkettenresilienz mit Hilfe der Graphentheorie, welche es erlaubt Strukturen von Lieferketten zu modellieren, im Hinblick auf Schwachstellen zu analysieren und mit Hilfe geeigneter Algorithmen zu verbessern. Besonderen Wert wird hierbei daraufgelegt, die Ergebnisse mit realen Datensätzen zu evaluieren.
description: The events of recent years, such as the COVID-19 pandemic or the blockage of the Suez Canal, have shown how vulnerable modern supply chains are to disruptions. Consisting of a complex network of suppliers and production sites, it becomes nearly impossible to identify and eliminate specific risks. Instead, it is crucial to strengthen the resilience of supply chains, allowing them to mitigate the immediate consequences of disruptions and recover quickly from their negative effects. This dissertation explores the concept of supply chain resilience using graph theory, which allows for the modeling of supply chain structures, analyzing them for weaknesses, and improving them through appropriate algorithms. Special emphasis is placed on evaluating the results with real-world datasets.
description: Contents ..... i
List of Figures ..... v
List of Tables ..... viii
List of Approaches ..... x
List of Abbreviations ..... xi
1. Introduction ..... 1
1.1. Motivation and Problem Statement ..... 1
1.2. Research Objective ..... 7
1.3. Research Design ..... 11
1.4. Thesis Structure ..... 15
2. Theoretical Background 18
2.1. Supply Chain Fundamentals ..... 18
2.1.1. Supply Chain Management ..... 19
2.1.2. Supply Chain Network Structure ..... 21
2.2. Supply Chain Risk Management ..... 23
2.3. Supply Chain Resilience ..... 26
2.3.1. Etymology ..... 26
2.3.2. Definitions of Supply Chain Resilience ..... 27
2.4. Graph Theory ..... 33
2.5. Towards Supply Chain Network Resilience ..... 41
3. Methodology 43
3.1. Structured Literature Review ..... 43
3.2. Multi-vocal Literature Review ..... 45
3.3. Semi-structured Interviews ..... 48
3.4. Operations Research ..... 50
3.5. Simulation Application ..... 52
3.6. Integration of Methods in Research Design ..... 55
4. Structural Performance Indicators for Assessing Supply Chain Network
Resilience 57
4.1. State of the Art for Assessing Supply Chain Network Resilience . . . . . 57
4.1.1. Supply Chain Performance in Face of Disruptions ..... 57
4.1.2. Indicators for Assessing Supply Chain Performance ..... 62
4.2. Methodology ..... 64
4.3. Requirements for Structural Performance Indicators ..... 66
4.3.1. Requirements Regarding Emerging Disruptions ..... 66
4.3.2. Requirements Regarding Disruption Propagation ..... 67
4.3.3. Requirements Regarding the Material Flow ..... 69
4.4. Structural Performance Indicators in Literature ..... 71
4.4.1. Node-based Indicators ..... 71
4.4.2. Network-based Indicators ..... 72
4.5. Assessment of Identified Structural Performance Indicators ..... 78
4.6. Evaluation of Chosen Structural Performance Indicators ..... 86
4.7. Limitations and Outlook ..... 87
5. Structural Bottlenecks of Supply Chain Networks 90
5.1. Introduction and Requirements ..... 90
5.2. Methodology ..... 92
5.3. Propositions About Structural Bottlenecks ..... 93
5.4. Evaluation of the Propositions ..... 97
5.4.1. Evaluation Design ..... 97
5.4.2. Case-based evaluation of the Propositions ..... 102
5.4.3. Evaluation of Requirements ..... 113
5.5. Limitations and Outlook ..... 114
6. Development of an Approach for Increasing Supply Chain Network Resilience117
6.1. Introduction and Requirements ..... 117
6.2. State of the Art ..... 120
6.2.1. Method for Identifying State of the Art Approaches ..... 120
6.2.2. Background on General Probabilistic Approaches ..... 122
6.2.3. Identified Approaches for Creating New Supply Chain Networks . 125
6.2.4. Identified Approaches for Adapting Existing Supply Chain Networks129
6.2.5. Evaluation of State of the Art Approaches ..... 132
6.3. Towards a Spanner Approach ..... 135
6.4. Methodology for Developing a Spanner Approach ..... 139
6.4.1. Literature Search for Existing Spanner Approaches ..... 139
6.4.2. Evaluation of the Developed Approach ..... 140
6.5. Development of a Spanner Approach for Increasing Supply Chain Network
Resilience ..... 146
6.5.1. State of the Art Spanner Approaches ..... 146
6.5.2. Suitability of Existing Spanner Approaches for Increasing Supply
Chain Network Resilience ..... 150
6.5.3. Design of the Spanner Approach for Increasing Supply Chain Network
Resilience ..... 152
6.5.3.1. Pseudo Code for Creating New Supply Chain Networks . 161
6.5.3.2. Pseudo Code for Adapting Existing Supply Chain Networks
..... 163
6.6. Evaluation of the Developed Spanner Approach ..... 166
6.6.1. Evaluation Design ..... 166
6.6.2. Verification ..... 170
6.6.3. Validation ..... 175
6.6.3.1. Influence of Input Parameters on Supply Chain Network
Resilience ..... 175
6.6.3.2. Comparison to State of the Art Approaches ..... 179
6.6.4. Evaluation of Requirements ..... 189
6.7. Limitations and Outlook ..... 192
7. Design of a Guideline for Increasing Supply Chain Network Resilience 196
7.1. Introduction and Requirements ..... 196
7.2. Methodology ..... 197
7.3. State of the Art/State of the Practice ..... 201
7.3.1. Existing Guidelines ..... 202
7.3.2. Identified Steps ..... 204
7.4. Resulting Guideline for Increasing Supply Chain Network Resilience . . . 208
7.5. Evaluation ..... 213
7.5.1. Evaluation of Requirements ..... 214
7.5.2. Interview-based Evaluation ..... 215
7.6. Limitations and Outlook ..... 215
8. Use Cases 217
8.1. Overview of Evaluation ..... 217
8.2. Use Case I ..... 218
8.3. Use Case II ..... 222
8.4. Discussion and Limitations ..... 226
9. Conclusion 230
9.1. Summary ..... 230
9.2. Limitations ..... 233
9.3. Outlook ..... 235
Bibliography 238
Appendix A. Structural Performance Indicators 256
Appendix B. Structural Bottlenecks 258
Appendix C. Developed Spanner Approach 260
C.1. Existing Spanner Approaches ..... 260
C.2. Simulation Results for the Validation ..... 262
C.2.1. Influence of parameters on supply chain network resilience . . . . 262
C.2.2. Comparison Between Approaches for Creating New Supply Chain
Networks ..... 280
C.2.3. Comparison of Approaches for Adapting Existing Supply Chain
Networks ..... 286
Appendix D. Guideline ..... 292
Appendix E. Use Cases ..... 295