John Gattorna and friends

The book contains 28 chapters, written by John Gattorna and friends, so the cover says. Eight of the chapters are written or co-written by John Gattorna himself. The others are written by individual authors, selected from both the industry and academia, which makes this book a perfect choice and valuable to both the professional, the practitioner and the researcher. It provides a number of case studies and theoretical discussions on the virtues of customer segmentation, and  much of the book’s value stems from a short ‘alignment insights’ summary at the end of each chapter, highlighting the main issues of each chapter. A major plus of this book are the clear figures, all held in (more or less) the same style. Normally, with different authors, the figures and diagrams would be in different styles, but not here. That is why this book appears incredibly structured and cohesive from the first to the last page.

Living Supply Chains

Dynamic Supply Chain Alignment picks up the notions presented in a previous book by John Gattorna, Living Supply Chains, where the four supply chain types are presented in-depth: Continuous Replenishment, Lean, Agile, Fully Flexible. Dynamic Supply Chain Alignment takes Living Supply Chains one step further. The key issue is to not make your supply chain one type only, but to keep it open-ended, such that the appropriate supply chain constellation can be matched to the according customer or supplier or product.

Customer Segmentation

One downside that should be mentioned is a slight lack of explanation or legend as to the customer segmentation diagrams. Each type of supply chain is established to meet a certain type of customer behaviour. These behaviors are illustrated using circles and crosshairs marking the dominant parameter of the behavior, indicated by a letter: D, P A, I and a. Unfortunately, the letter combinations and quadrant segmentation (why is ‘P’ = ‘innovative’ and why in the upper right?) are not explained at all in this book, but in the previous Living Supply Chains.  That is a major drawback of this book, since the segmentation circles pervade almost every figure in the book, and without an explanation, the uninitiated reader will soon run into problems and perhaps even discard this excellent book…

Not a textbook, but…

It is not a textbook that one reads from beginning to end, rather are the chapters like separate and closed episodes. That is what makes this book a fascinating read. Yes, they do complement and support each other, but they are also very different from each other. While some of the chapters do an excellent job in applying Gattorna’s alignment model and supply chain configurations, other chapters appear to be struggling with the concept and – at best – cursory mention how important alignment is. That said, all chapters are well-founded and well worth reading.

Chapter by chapter

Below is a brief chapter by chapter review/summary. A link to the author’s homepage (or other web page with author information) has been included wherever possible. If you believe there are better links, please don’t hesitate to contact me with a correction.

Prelude

John Gattorna and Anna Game Lopata

The prelude is a 43-page ‘summary of the discussions that took place during the 2008 Supply Chain Business Forum at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia. Personally, I think it is an unnecessary prelude, especially considering that the discussions have already been published as a series of articles in Logistics magazine in Australia.

People powering enterprise supply chains

John Gattorna

This chapter is a great starting point, explaining how people are at the center of all supply chains and that the key to successful supply chain execution is people. And, without much ado, John Gattorno dives straight into the four types of supply chains:

• Contimuous Replenishment Supply Chains
  • Where relationships matter most
• Lean Supply Chains
  • Where the focus is on efficiency and lowest cost-to-serve
• Agile Supply Chains
  • Where Quick response is paramount
• Fully Flexible Supply Chains
  • Where nothing is impossible

Interestingly, at the end of the chapter he follows up with advocating biased key performance indicators instead of balanced scorecards, thus replacing the old school one-size-fits-all supply chain.

Requisite collaboration in enterprise supply chains

John Gattorna

Gattorna contends that collaboration is an overused and overworked concept and that it is not advisable to implement it in any other supply chains besides the continuous replenishment supply chain. Furthermore, collaboration  makes sense only with those who truly want to collaborate. There and only there is where collaboration can add value to the supply chain, and requisite collaboration means to adjust the level of collaboration accordingly.

Building relationships that create value

Richard Wilding and Andrew Humphries

This chapter deals with the management, or rather, the  measurement of supply chain relationships. While collaboration can add to supply chain performance, it is equally important to to understand and measure the collaboration efforts. Thus, the authors introduce the Supply Chain Collaborating Index (SCCI), a method of analyzing and diagnosing collaborative business relationships:

• Key performance drivers:
  • Creativity, Stability, Communication, Reliability, Value
• Relationship characteristics:
  • Long-term orientation, Interdependence, Collaboration, Trust, Commitment, Adaptation, Personal relationships

Key message: If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.

Lean and agile supply chains

John Gattorna

This is the shortest chapter in the book, a mere 4 pages. No surprise, actually, because Gattorna is by no means a champion of the lean supply chain philosophy, quite the contrary. Gattorna strongly suggest that lean should only be applied where lean is absolutely appropriate, and he implies that more often than not, lean is not the appropriate strategy.

The evolution of fully flexible supply chains

Kate Hughes

Fully flexible supply chains are formed in response to (extreme) business events, but not only that. Fully flexible supply chains are also what is needed in response to an emergency or humanitarian crisis. In fact, humanitarian supply chains are not fully flexible from the start, they evolve and go through all the supply chain categories during the 4 phases of their life cycle:

• Lean + Collaborative (Prequel)
  • Stockpiling goods
• Agile (Phase 1)
  • Executing quick response
• Fully Flexible (Phase 2)
  • ‘Improvising’ creative solutions on site
• Collaborative + Lean + Agile (Phase 3)
  • Developing systematic/structured activities
  • Returning to ‘normal’

Humanitarian supply chains are ‘extreme’ supply chains with a high level of uncertainty in constantly changing environments. Traditional supply chains may often hinder (rather an facilitate) the response efforts.

Humanitarian supply chains in action

Kim Winter

The humanitarian context differs considerably from the commercial context, and humanitarian supply chains must deal with perhaps the most challenging requirements of all: They must be multiple, global, dynamic and temporary. While the ability to rapidly respond and adapt is the strong side, humanitarian supply chains also have a weak side: Because of their temporal nature, there is seldom any long-term performance measurement (and thus improvement).

• Lack of recognition of the importance of logistics
• Lack of professional staff, particular on site
• Ineffective leveraging of technology
• Lack of institutional learning
• Limited collaboration among humanitarian organizations

In my opinion this is a rather harsh verdict on humanitarian supply chains, but importantly, it provides some ground for the improvement and alignment of humanitarian supply chains.

Enhanced civil-military collaboration in humanitarian supply chains

Michael Whiting

This chapter points out that in disaster response, military supply chains can play a major role side-by-side with humanitarian supply chains. However, roles and responsibilities need to be clearly separated, because the military community has different objectives, schedules and priorities from the humanitarian community. In order to separate roles and responsibilities while preserving the internal alignment of both supply chains there must be coordination, but not collaboration. Military operations may enable access for humanitarian operations, but neither party should be part of the other party’s operations.

Revisiting and refining Lee’s ”Triple-A supply chain”

John Gattorna

I’ve read Lee’s  article on the Triple-A Supply Chain, and I liked it very much. What Gattorna does, is to take a critical look at Lee’s three A’s: Adaptability, Agility and Alignment, and place them within his own vernacular of supply chain categories. Here, Agility becomes just one of many supply chain configurations, Adaptability becomes the ability to flex in the extreme when disruptions occur, and Alignment becomes the ability to engage different supply chain configurations according to customer buying behavior. Most important though is to understand that the internal culture more than external structure plays the biggest role in improving supply chain performance.

Designing supply chain organizations for peak-performance

John Gattorna

Another fitting title for this chapter could be ‘From silos to daisies’, because here Gattorna shows that in traditional supply chains the company itself, and not the customer is the focus of supply chain organization. Instead of setting up a supply chain along the traditional silos, supply chains should use cross-organizational and customer-centric clusters, similar to a daisy. Ideally, the clusters will differ from supply chain configuration to supply chain configuration, which in itself differs from customer segment to customer segment.

The supply-side view and reverse logistics

John Gattorna and Deborah Ellis

Supply chains are generally seen as having a forward movement, where ‘reverse logistics’ refers to the return of a (defect) product. These days, reverse logistics is a lot more, and includes activities such as avoiding return and recycling of products at the end of their life cycle. Interestingly, the same supply chain configurations as for the foward supply chain can be used for the reverse supply chain:

• The Agile Return Path
  • Where time is the key driver
• The Lean Return Path
  • Where cost is the key driver
• The Continuous Replenishment Supply Chain
  • Where relationships are the key driver
• The Fully Flexible Return Path
  • Where it’s all about risk (and recall)

Basically, effective return and recycling operations demand the same clear paths and processes as forward supply chains.

Sales and operations planning – the critical ingredients in supply chain operations

Scott Githens

This chapter applies the principles of sales and operations planning to each of the four supply chain configurations. In particular, the continuous replenishment supply chain and lean supply chain configurations can benefit greatly from the sales and operations planning framework, because it balances and integrates decision-making across functions and organizations. Consequently, it also works in agile supply chains, and surprisingly also in fully flexible supply chains, despite the fact that the notion of uncertainty inherent in fully flexible supply chains runs counter to the notion of predictability that is inherent to sales and operations planning. Nonetheless, sales and operations planning can provide pre-calculated and contingent decision variables that can be used to address the impacts of sudden events in the supply chain.

Supply chain integration layer

Nigel Jones

A better title for this chapter would be ‘Supply Chain Visibility’, for that is what this chapter is all about. In simple terms, supply chain visibility is a system for identifying the identity,  location and status of entities transiting the supply chain, captured in timely messages about events, along with the planned and actual times for these events. Supply Chain Visibility can be achieved by applied what is known as Business Activity Monitoring, which must be couched in the widest possible context in order to include more than just the physical movement of goods.

Supply chain configurations and the impact of different pricing strategies

Chung Chee Kong

This chapter addresses how to develop a coherent pricing approach that is aligned with the four supply chain configurations. Customer segmentation provides the foundation for developing a company’s pricing and service offer structures. Properly aligning price and service offers to  a customer’s worth, needs and other characteristics provides many opportunities for companies to create new value for their business.

Performance measurement – shaping supply chain sub-cultures

Linda Nuthall

This chapter explores the role of performance management and how each supply chain configuration will have its own performance measures:

• Continuous Replenishment Supply Chains
  • Service reliability and quality
• Lean Supply Chains
  • Service reliability and price
• Agile Supply chains
  • Speed of response
• Fully Flexible Supply Chains
  • Speed and appropriateness of contingent response

Using network optimization modeling techniques to resolve supply chain complexity and achieve aligned operations

Deborah Ellis

This chapter discusses the most common decision support tool used to support strategic and tactical supply chain network design decisions – the network optimization model.

DHL Taiwan – aligning the express business with customers

Stuart Whiting

This chapter delivers an in-depth discussion of the four types of customer behavior and how DHL Taiwan aligned their supply chain accordingly, improved their supply chain performance, and experienced between 8 and 16 percent increase in customer retention.

Aligning Fonterra’s global supply chain network

Nigel Jones

This chapter shows how the New Zealand dairy company Fonterra used customer segmentation to focus their resources and efforts. Particular emphasis is given to the collaborative segment.

Supply chain alignment – Brazilian style

Carlos Frederico Bremer, Rodrigo Cambiaghi Azevedo, Carlos Aravechia and Lucas Cley da Horta

This chapter contains two case studies from Brazil and illustrates the re-engineering of supply chain management practices in line with the principles of customer segmentation and dynamic supply chain alignment.

Supply chain alignment – European style

Janet Godsell

This chapter seeks to provide insights into the realities of applying dynamic supply chain alignment in Europe, a politically and geographically  diverse continent and thus challenging environment for any supply chain configuration. Using the principles of dynamic supply chain alignment it is possible to discern four types of alignment: Strategic alignment, Customer alignment, Internal alignment and Supplier alignment.

Corporate social responsibility in enterprise supply chains

Mark Reynolds and Leeora Black

This is one of the chapters that struggles ever so slightly with applying dynamic supply chain alignment to the chapter topic. While the chapter insights mention that large-scale sustainable outcomes can only be achieved with the help of finely tuned and aligned supply chains that connect together all all the activities through the life cycle of products, there is very little in the chapter to exemplify or elaborate further how this can be done.

Building sustainable supply chains for the future

Mike Bernon

This chapter does a much better job than the preceding in applying dynamic supply chain alignment to develop sustainable supply chains, and also uses the SCOR model (Plan – Source -Make – Deliver – Return – Dispose) to show where alignment can be achieved along each phase of the supply chain.

Managing disruptions in contemporary supply chains

Kevin B. Hendricks and Vinod R.Singhal

This chapter highlights that while there are four generic types of supply chain configurations, there are potentially a lot more than four generic types of supply chain disruptions. Risk is dynamic, and managers make choices, choices that ultimately will effect the outcomes of disruptions. What makes risk management even more difficult is that the risk preferences of the various stakeholders (owners, customers, suppliers, partners, etc.) may run contradictory to the principles of the current supply chain configuration, i.e. a demand for increased efficiency may improve performance, but it may also increase the impact of disruptions, should they occur.

The coming of age of third party logistics providers

Jeremy Clarke and John Gattorna

As supply chains evolve and become ever more global and complex and intertwined, third-party logistics providers (3PL) will become ever more important. These 3PL must be able to tailor their services to the various supply chain configurations and adapt existing contracts to sudden changes in the existing configuration. All in all, 3PL appears to be better suited for surviving the future challenges than 4PL. What is most important is how the 3PL level manages or aligns with the two lower levels.

Tax-aligned supply chains

Brett Campbell and Alyson Rodi

This is an interesting supply chain configuration: the tax-aligned supply chain (TASC). The idea behind this concept is that supply chain decisions have tax implications, and tax implications affect the financial performance of supply chains. TASC is right if an organization

• has significant supply chain operations in several countries
• is undergoing significant changes (e.g. mergers and restructuring)
• is pursuing aggressive cost-reduction goals
• is planning new manufacturing, distribution or R&D facilities
• is adopting a new supply chain infrastructure

Thus, the key is take advantage of tax-saving opportunities, that should not come as a short-term bonus or sudden windfall when they are (accidentally) discovered, but that should be part of a long-term strategy of improving after-tax returns.

The emergence of national logistics cities

Pieter Nagel, Michael Proffitt, Keith Toh and Roger Oakden

What is a National Logistics City? Singapore is perhaps the prime example of a planned development around a nucleus freight terminal that turns into a freight hub because there is sufficient provision of appropriate infrastructure and physical facilities (road, rail, sea and air), connected by IT and supported by logistical services such as warehousing, distribution and forwarding services. It goes without saying that this can only be achieved by aligning supply chains and by aligning industry with government and city development. Other cites are in the making and the chapter tells you which.

The importance of intellectual capital and knowledge in the design and operation of enterprise supply chains

Kate Andrews

This chapter aligns knowledge management with the four supply chain configurations, showing that each configuration demands a different approach and focus when it comes to retaining and using knowledge.

• Lean Supply Chains
  • The Factory – Rock-solid core business
• Continuous Replenishment Supply Chains
  • The Cafe – Relationships matter most
• Agile Supply Chains
  • The Triage – Quick response is paramount
• Fully Flexible Supply Chains
  • The Test Lab – Achieving the impossible

The  metaphors for describing the knowledge focus in each configuration are very interesting indeed.

China and India – future giants of supply chain developments in the twenty-first century

Paul W. Bradley

This chapter focuses on China as the new manufacturing powerhouse of supply chains and India as the new technology powerhouse of supply chains. Combined and aligned, this will advance and enhance the development of supply chains in the Asian region. Personally I think they forgot to mention Indonesia here, since ‘Chindonesia’ (or perhaps ‘Chindapore’?) is curently seen as the strongest emerging market in the region.

The supply chains of 2030

John Gattorna and Deborah Ellis

The final chapter makes the case that the supply chain of the future needs to break away from the conventions of the past and needs to find new business models (and supply chain configurations, of course). Supply chains are set to become the center of a business’ health and well being, rather than simply a specialist function. Supply chains are the business, not simply a part of the business. With this philosophy, supply chains must not only be aligned internally and enterprise-wide, but also externally with each and every stakeholder. And many businesses currently not seeing themselves as a supply chain will have to re-think their strategies and start applying dynamic supply chain alignment. If that comes true, and that is my personal opinion here, supply chain management as a workplace will have a bright future, well beyond the operational logistics it once was meant to cover.

Conclusion

Dynamic Supply Chain Alignment is an excellent book, although clearly more geared towards practice than towards research. From a supply chain risk perspective, the main focus of this blog, only one chapter is worth reading. Nonetheless, from an overall and holistic supply chain perspective it is one of the very best books I have read. My recommendation though would be to read (or at least browse through) Living Supply Chains first, and then Dynamic Supply Chain Alignment. While Dynamic Supply Chain Alignment can stand perfectly well on it’s own it is best enjoyed together with Living Supply Chains.

What are the industry thoughts on Dynamic Supply Chain Alignment?

To answer this question I initiated a question on LinkedIn:

In his book Dynamic Supply Chain Alignment, John Gattorna narrows the world of supply chains down to 4 supply chain configurations, based on four types of customer behavior: Continuous Replenishment, Lean, Agile, Fully Flexible. While I am fascinated by the Gattorna’s ideas, I am wondering, is this a widely used concept or not?

Here is what people said about Dynamic Supply Chain Alignment on LinkedIn

Reference

Gattorna, J (2009) Dynamic Supply Chain Alignment. A new Business Model for Peak Performance in Enterprise Supply Chains Across All Geographies. Farnham: Gower Publishing.

Gattorna, J (2006) Living Supply Chains. How to mobilize the enterprise around delivering what your customers want. Harlow: Pearson Education.

Publisher link

• Gower Publishing: Dynamic Supply Chain Alignment

Related

• husdal.com: Lean + Agile = Leagile: A happy marriage?

Finding myself

It is actually quite interesting how I found this article. Remember my post on the Catch 22 of Academic Publishing? In that post I realized that the final value of academic publishing lies maybe not in the number of articles you publish, but in the number of publications that are actually cited. The higher the number of citations, the higher the level of utility. As it turns out, many of the articles on this site, which indeed are academical work,  but  are far from being academically published (as in academic journals), are nonetheless  widely used in the academic community, even to the point of being mistaken for my PhD. As I was following up on my post on the actual scholarliness Google Scholar, I decided to put Google Scholar to the test and search for myself to see what else that would turn up. That is how I came across the article for today’s post, where the author had used a very early (and I’m compelled to say ‘premature’) version of my thoughts on flexibility and robustness as one of their references.

Attempting to make sense of it all

The way the authors go about in their review is reminiscent of the approach in an article previously reviewed on this blog, namely Vanany, Zailani and Pujawan (2009) Supply chain risk management: literature review and future research, where the focus was on anything supply chain risk management, hence my title for today, reflecting on the very similar title for my review of Vanany et al, Supply chain risk management – a complete review? And do Babu & More (2008) deliver a complete review of anything supply chain flexibility?

The review of More & Babu

In their 34-page review the authors examine an impressive list of 107 articles and classify various aspects of supply chain flexibility. It is indeed a voluminous paper and not the easiest to keep oversight in,  and the authors do a formidable job in keepings things separate, I have to give them credit for that.  So, let me give you a short run-down off the essential findings:

Understanding supply chain flexibility

First,  More & Babu highlight some of the definitions and characteristics of (supply chain) flexibility used in their list of articles, before reverting to a definition of supply chain flexibility they themselves used in a previous conference presentation:

the inherent ability, or characteristics of the supply chain and its partners,

• to be sensitive to minor and major disturbances in the business environment,
• to correctly assess the actual situation,
• to quickly respond, adjust and adapt with little time, effort and cost, and
• to effectively control the organization, and
• to keep the performance stable.

While I agree that this definition encompasses most elements that need to be in place for a supply chain to be flexible, in my opinion it is not ‘crisp’ enough and it does not stand out vis-a-vis supply chain agility. However, the difference is clarified later in this paper, and I realize that the author use supply chain flexibility as an overarching or overlapping concept,that has much common ground with other concepts.

Types of supply chain flexibility

In defining ‘types’ of supply chain flexibility the author list no less than 71 different types, linking each type with the appropriate reference. I believe that some of these could and should be aggregated into other types, thus reducing the overall number, but it only goes to show that flexibility in one industry is different from flexibility in another industry.

Dimensions of supply chain flexibility

After describing the various types of supply chain flexibility, More & Babu propose three domains of dimensions for supply chain flexibility:

• core flexibility
• global flexibility
• supplemental flexibility

Core flexibility, obviously being the most important dimension, is described more in detail, the others more cursory. This is not a glitch, but only natural, since the other dimensions essentially are a result of  core flexibility, which relates to:

• Manufacturing
• Sourcing/Procurement/Purchasing
• Logistics Distribution
• Information and communication (ICT)
• Organization
• Human resources
• Market

Global flexibility is essential for achieving spatial and temporal flexibility and is seen as a response to environmental uncertainty. Although not clearly defined in the article, global flexibility encompasses all elements needed for stretching a supply chain around the globe, from supplier to end customer, particularly related to a network that can change time and space.

Supplemental flexibility appears as a rather foggy concept and I am not sure what the authors mean, but I guess it is anything else related to flexibility and not covered above. Or it could be flexibility that is not intended or designed or built in, but just happens to be there when needed?

Supply chain flexibility for business excellence

This section of the article deals with supply chain principles and how they relate to or are different from supply chain flexibility. I should add that while some of them are well described and well discussed, others are only given a more cursory review.

Supply chain flexibility – lean

While lean may work well in a predictable and non-volatile environment, flexible works better when faced with disruptive events.

Supply chain flexibility – agile

Agility is an extended concept of flexibility, and is achieved when the system is inherently flexible and able to repond to unpredictable events. A flexible system can be, but isn’t always agile; an agile system is always flexible.

Supply chain flexibility – responsive

Responsiveness is the ability to react  to customer demands or market changes. An inherently flexible system is able to respond; however, it is possible to be flexible, but not responsive, while responsiveness will always imply that there is an underlying flexible system. A flexible supply chain with time (to meet and satisfy the changes) as the primary constraint is a responsive supply chain.

Supply chain flexibility – resilient

Here the authors follow Sheffi in that more flexibility equals more resilience, thus enabling continuous reconstruction and the ability to bounce back after any disturbance.

Supply chain flexibility – robust

Interestingly, my own article on robustness and flexibility, which they reference, makes it into the ‘robust’ category. I’m not sure that’s where I would put it, but maybe yes. At that time (2004) my ideas on flexibility were still in the molding. However, as More & Babu see it, flexibility is an external concept, robustness is an internal concept, being flexible is to adapt and adjust, being robust is to accommodate and absorb. Faced with a disruption or external event, a robust supply chain will continue unchanged, while a flexible supply chain will continue changed. Robust is being risk averse and seeking certainty. Flexible is accepting uncertainty and and the risk that comes with it. I am not sure that is how I saw it in 2004, but looking back at my definitions of robust and flexible, yes, that interpretation is justified.

Forces and dynamics of supply chain flexibility

This is one of the more interesting parts of the paper, where they look at three (four) new terms: (domains and) stimuli, enablers and inhibitors, all contributing to how, or how not, supply chain flexibility can be achieved. The individual items pertaining to these terms make up an impressive list, which is very thorough, drawn from the reviewed literature.

Stimuli

Stimuli are the elements that compel the supply chain partners to take actions in response to a changing environment. Listing 16 domains (e.g. customer, competitor, technology, market, product, and 13 more…), the authors look at which stimuli that would bring forth supply chain flexibility. In technology, for instance, it could be rapid advances in technology, in product it could be shorter and shorter life cycle of products, and so on. Some 70 or so stimuli are listed.

Enablers

Enablers are tools and techniques that support the implementation or realization of supply chain flexibility. The authors divide the enablers according to six ‘segments’ in the supply chain, starting with supply and procurement, and divided into sub-segments, and list some 150-200 enablers (I gave up counting).

Inhibitors

Inhibitors are internal and external forces that impede the supply chain. Here we have another ‘everything that comes to mind’ list, including no less than 62 inhibitors, ranging from market constraints to the more mundane ‘low morale’.

The dynamics of three forces

This is where the paper really lets me down, slightly. While the discussion itself is excellent, the figure that is supposed to illustrate the three concepts and the discussion leading up to it, is more or less completely void of any of the aforementioned, at least in the way it was presented. It is almost as if this is a completely different model, a good model, but not what I expected.

The verdict

The basic message I am reading out of this paper is that ‘It is all supply chain flexibility’, whatever we name it, whatever other concepts we bring in, it all comes down to one thing: being flexible. I am also impressed with the breadth of the paper. That is the upside.

If there is a downside to this paper it has to be the length and the attempt at being exhaustive to the point of including way too much detail. This leads to an overly lengthy listing of items, i.e. the discussion of stimuli, enablers and inhibitors, which would have fared much better had it been focused on a few aggregated items. While the stimuli, enablers and inhibitors are said to be drawn form the literature, no particular references are made to which is drawn from which literature.

I would also have liked to see the a model that actually incorporates the three forces.

While apparently geared towards manufacturing and operations, the wider scope of supply chain seems to be somewhat missing from the paper, e.g. I did not find the any of the seminal papers by Cooper, Lambert and Pagh in their reference list. Not that they should have been there, not really, but I usually expect at least one of those papers in a paper on supply chains.

Conclusion

That said, given the breadth and length, there IS much food for thought. And to answer the question stated in my title, yes, it is a complete review of supply chain flexibility as far as I am able to judge.

Reference

More, D., & Babu, A. (2008). Perspectives, practices and future of supply chain flexibility International Journal of Business Excellence, 1 (3) DOI: 10.1504/IJBEX.2008.017885

Links

• iitb.ac.in: A Subash Babu
• iitb.ac.in: Dileep More

Related

• husdal.com: De-confusing SCRM – robustness, resilience, flexibility and agility
• husdal.com: Robustness, Resilience and Flexibility in the supply chain
• husdal.com: Robustness and flexibility as options to reduce uncertainty

Various approaches

Over the years, many definitions have popped up throughout the literature and some of my thoughts have already been posted in my previous post on robustness, resilience and flexibility. Here is an updated version, with references to the supporting literature. Mind you, this is not meant as an exhaustive list, it is just a selection of articles that I have found useful:

Goranson (1992) differentiates between agility and flexibility. Flexibility is scheduled or planned adaption to unforeseen yet expected external circumstances. Agility is unplanned and unscheduled adaption to unforeseen and unexpected external circumstances.

Rice & Canatio (2003) focus on security and resilience by upholding flexibility and redundancy as two methods with the greatest potential to create resilience. Redundancy is capacity that may or may not be used; it is this additional capacity that would be used to replace the capacity loss caused by a disruption. Flexibility, on the other hand, entails redeploying previously committed capacity.

Lee (2004) uses the term “Triple-A” supply chain (agility, adaptability and alignment). Agility means to respond quickly to changes (and disruptions) in supply and demand, adaptability means to adjust to shifting markets and alignment implies an equitable sharing of costs, gains, risks, knowledge and information across the whole supply chain.

Christopher & Peck (2004) contend that resilience implies agility, and define supply chain agility as the ability to quickly respond to unpredictable changes in demand and supply, slightly akin to Goranson’s definition. An agile and responsive supply chain, they argue, requires agile partners upstream and downstream of the focal firm.

Lummus, Duclos & Vokurka (2003) and  Duclos, Vokurka & Lummus (2004) see flexibility as a cross-enterprise undertaking composed of 6 components: 1) operations – the ability configure assets and operations according to customer trends, 2) market – the ability to customize design and build close relationship with customers, 3) logistics – the ability to receive and deliver according to locational changes in supply and demand, 4) supply – the ability to reconfigure the supply chain, 5) organization – the ability to align labor force skills with customer or demand requirements and 6) information systems – the ability information systems architectures and systems with changing information needs in response to changes elsewhere in the organization.

Sheffi (2005) sees flexibility as a way to achieve resilience, stating that instead of relying solely on supply chain redundancy, a well-managed firm should develop resilience, by building flexibility that can be used to ‘bounce back’ from disruptions. To me, that would rather be agility (in line with Goranson’s definition)  than flexibility.

Tomlin (2006) differentiates between contingent and mitigative actions. Flexibility can here be seen as a contingency action, that is: actions taken in the event of a disruption. Redundancy can be seen as a mitigation action, that is: actions taken in advance of a disruption, hence incurring a cost regardless of disruption.

McManus et al. (2007) view resilience as depending on 1) keystone vulnerabilities, criticality and preparedness, 2) situation awareness, stemming from an assessment of the keystone vulnerabilities, and 3) adaptive capacity, which is nothing other than flexibility and agility. Resilience, in essence, is the ability to survive disruptive changes despite severe impact.

Asbjørnslett (2008) sees flexibility or agility as the inherent capability to modify a current direction to accommodate and successfully adapt to changes in the environment, whereas robustness refers to the ability to endure such changes without adapting. Resilience is the ability to survive despite withstanding a severe and enduring impact.

In summary

Flexibility or agility, robustness and resilience are different sides of the same coin, yet at the same time distinctively different animalsThe difference between robustness, flexibility, agility and resilience is illustrated in the figure below, taken from Husdal (2009). Note that there is a distinct notion of different severity in each of these definitions.

The ability to survive (resilience) is likely to be more important in a business setting than the ability to quickly regain stability (robustness) or the ability to change course (flexibility or agility).

Reference

Asbjørnslett, B. (2008). Assessing the Vulnerability of Supply Chains. In Zsidisin, G. A., & Ritchie, B. (Eds.) Supply Chain Risk: A Handbook of Assessment, Management and Performance. New York, NY: Springer.

Christopher, M., & Peck, H. (2004). Building the Resilient Supply Chain The International Journal of Logistics Management, 15 (2), 1-14 DOI: 10.1108/09574090410700275

Duclos, L., Vokurka, R., & Lummus, R. (2003). A conceptual model of supply chain flexibility Industrial Management & Data Systems, 103 (6), 446-456 DOI: 10.1108/02635570310480015

Goranson, T. (1999). The Agile Virtual Enterprise. Westport, CT: Quorum Books

Husdal, J. (2009). Does location matter? Supply chain disruptions in sparse transportation networks. Paper presented at the TRB Annual Meeting, Washington DC.

Lee, H. L. (2003). The Triple-A Supply Chain Harvard Business Review, 82 (10), 102-112

Lummus, R. R., Duclos, L. K., & Vokurka, R. J. (2003). Supply Chain Flexibility: Building a New Model Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management, 4 (4), 1-13

Mc Manus, S., Seville, E., Brunsdon, D., & Vargo, J. (2007). Resilience Management: A Framework for Assessing and Improving the Resilience of Organisations (Report No. 2007/01). Christchurch, New Zealand: Resilient Organisations.

Rice, J. B., & Caniato, F. (2003). Building a secure and resilient supply network. Supply Chain Managment Review, 7(5), 22-30.

Sheffi, Y. (2005). The Resilient Enterprise – Overcoming Vulnerability for Competitive Advantage. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Tomlin, B. (2006). On the Value of Mitigation and Contingency Strategies for Managing Supply Chain Disruption Risks Management Science, 52 (5), 639-657

Related

• husdal.com – Supply Chain Flexibility: a complete review?
• husdal.com – Robustness, Resilience and Flexibility in the supply chain
• husdal.com – Robustness and flexibility as options to reduce uncertainty

agilecontinuity.org

Paul works with TexoNet, designing and delivering ImpactAware based solutions to the business continuity market, and on his blog, Paul shares some of his insights after spending some 18 months talking to a huge range of Business Continuity experts and practitioners. Paul takes a pragmatic and practice-oriented stand towards

agile or flexible?

In the supply chain community, where I spend much of my time, there is a continuous debate over the terms flexible and agile. Some consider them to be the same, some consider them to be different. Sometimes, the terms resilent and robust are also brought into the discussion. Flexibility, agility, robustness and resilience are different sides of the same coin, yet at the same time distinctively different animals

flexible = planned, agile = unplanned

How can we differ agility from flexibility? As I see it, flexibility is scheduled or planned adaption to unforeseen yet expected external circumstances. Agility is unplanned and unscheduled adaption to unforeseen and unexpected external circumstances. Robustness refers to the ability to endure changes in external circumstances without adapting, while resilience is the ability to survive despite withstanding a severe and enduring impact. This post explains the difference: De-confusing SCRM: robustness, resilience, flexibility and agility.

Business Continuity = Agility?

Back to agilecontinuity.org. Why do I think agile is the correct term? If disasters have taught us anything, it is that they never strike according to plan, meaning that they more often than not warrant unplanned actions rather than planned actions. Unplanned actions cannot be found in a dust-gathering business continuity plan on some shelf, unplanned actions can only be found in the minds of those involved. If people are taught to think continuity in their daily work actions, people will know what to. To me, that is the essence of agility, and that is why business continuity needs to be agile. agilecontinuity.org captures this.

Link

• agilecontinuity.org: agilecontinuity.org

Author Link

• linkedin.com: Paul James

Related

• husdal.com – SCRM: robustness, resilience, flexibility and agility
• husdal.com: Business Continuity blogs of note
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