# Reconfigurable Supply Chain Selection: Literature Review, Research Roadmap and New Trends
## 2 Literature Review  
### Supply Chain Configuration  
The strategic and organizational issues involved in the management of supply chain configuration extend largely the structural considerations related to the choice of warehouse locations, modes of transport, etc. Several studies showed that supply chain configurations can be classified in several ways. They can be associated with product configurations, product family design and change strategies.  
The authors of [12] chose two types of supply chain strategies derived from a classification related to product types. The first strategy is the \"efficient supply chain\" related to functional products that include the staples that people buy in a wide range of retail outlets. The second strategy is the \"responsive supply chain\" related to innovative products that allow firms to increase margins and build customer loyalty.  
In the context of strategies for aligning the supply chain with product uncertainties, The author of [13] classified supply chain configurations into four types of strategies where information technology and the internet played an important role in their development. The first strategy is the \"efficient supply chain\" aimed at optimizing costs. It consists of eliminating non-value-added activities, achieving economies of scale and using optimization techniques for better capacity utilization. The second strategy, called \"supply chain risk-hiding\", consists of sharing information in real time to reduce the effects of supply chain disruptions. The third strategy is \"supply chain responsiveness\", which refers to using strategies to be responsive and flexible to changing and diverse customer needs. The fourth strategy is the \"agile supply chain\" which combines the benefits of the hiding and responsiveness strategies because it has the ability to respond to changing, diverse and unpredictable customer demands upstream, while minimizing the risk of supply disruptions downstream.  
In order to determine the attributes needed to design the configuration of supply chains, The authors of [11] proposed a classification based on the state of the supply chain configuration. Indeed, this refers to a \"state\" that includes data related to the structure of the supply chain, levels of integration, flows, etc. Meanwhile, the configuration refers to a \"transformation\", which is related to the change in structure, activities, product range, etc.  
The authors of [14] distinguished two types of approaches related to supply chain configuration. These are traditional approaches that seek to optimize safety stock placements at each node as well as new approaches representing scenarios where the product design is realized but the logistics options have not yet been chosen.  
The author of [15] proposed seven types of supply chain configurations that maximize its ability to respond quickly to new needs, namely collaborative, lean, agile, campaign, fully flexible, supplier converter and hybrid supply chain. In the same perspective, The authors of [16] grouped supply chain configurations under four types of structures including agile, flexible, lean and responsive. Each type allows for the improvement of specific indicators of supply chain performance.  
After synthesizing the supply chain configuration approaches, The authors of [17] categorized them based on product, function and operation, and system characteristics. The first type refers to configurations based on product types. The second refers to configurations based on operations and relationships between actors in the chain. The third type is based on the consideration of a supply chain as a system of interconnected units or entities.  
Table 1 summarizes the proposed approaches for supply chain configuration.