COVID-19 and supply chain risk mitigation: a case study from India

Abstract

PurposeThis study prioritizes the supply chain risks (SCRs) and determines risk mitigation strategies (RMSs) for the Indian apparel industry to mitigate the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic disruption.Design/methodology/approachInitially, 23 SCRs within the apparel industry are identified through an extant literature review. Further, a fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP) is utilized to prioritize the SCRs considering the epidemic situations to understand the criticality of SCRs and determine appropriate RMSs to mitigate the shock of SCRs during COVID-19.FindingsThis study prioritized and ranked the SCRs within the Indian apparel industry based on their severity during the COVID-19 disruption. Results indicate that the demand uncertainty and pandemic disruption risks are the most critical. Based on the SCRs, the present work evaluated and suggested the flexibility and postponement mitigation strategies for the case under study.Research limitations/implicationsThis study has novel implications to the existing literature on supply chain risk management in the form of the FAHP framework. Supply chain practitioners from the other industrial sectors can extend the proposed FAHP framework to assess the SCRs and identify suitable mitigation strategies. The results aid the practitioners working in an apparel industry to benchmark and deploy the proposed RMSs in their firm.Originality/valueThe present study is a unique and earlier attempt to develop a quantitative framework using FAHP to evaluate and determine the risk mitigation strategy for managing the SCRs during the coronavirus epidemic.

Examining the barriers to operationalization of humanitarian supply chains: lessons learned from COVID-19 crisis

“…Delphi is an iterative method that aids the processing of the experts’ opinions on the studied phenomenon recursively until the arrival of the consensus amongst experts’ opinions (Delbecq et al, 1975 ; Dohale et al, 2019 ; Dohale, Ambilkar, et al, 2021 ; Dohale, Gunasekaran, et al, 2021 ; Dohale, Verma, et al, 2021 ; Emovon et al, 2018 ). Delphi comprises continuous brainstorming to collect the data on validation of the topic under investigation (Moktadir et al, 2019 ).…”

“…barriers, criteria, performance measures, enablers, etc. using experts’ opinions (Emovon et al, 2018 ; Kumar et al, 2021 ); (2) Delphi utilizes organized procedure to gather experts opinions and conducts anonymous assessments of the responses (Linstone & Turoff, 2002 ); (3) Each expert equally collaborates in Delphi; thus the issues concerning influential personalities, conflict of opinions, and group pressures can be eliminated resulting in more accurate judgments (Dohale et al, 2021 ; Dohale, Gunasekaran, et al, 2021 ; Dohale, Verma, et al, 2021 ; Gulati et al, 2018 ); (4) Delphi can consider the experts from a wide geographical area (Linstone & Turoff, 2002 ).…”

“…Selecting appropriate experts is crucial in the Delphi procedure (Devaney & Henchion, 2018 ; Dohale, Ambilkar, et al, 2021 ; Dohale, Gunasekaran, et al, 2021 ; Dohale, Verma, et al, 2021 ). We assessed the experts based on the three criteria—(1) knowledge and experience of the topic of investigation (minimum five years of experience); (2) current working position within the organization; and (3) availability and interest to participate in the study (Bokrantz et al, 2017 ).…”

“…As the nature of disasters and their induced risk to supply chains is different, the nature of barriers posed by the different disasters can be different (Cozzolino, 2012 ; Dohale et al, 2021 ; Dohale, Ambilkar, et al, 2021 ; Dohale, Gunasekaran, et al, 2021 ; Dohale, Gunasekaran, et al, 2021 ; Dohale, Verma, et al, 2021 ; Dohale, Verma, et al, 2021 ). Pandemics are the unique kind of disasters that creates a negative impact on a massive multi-country or worldwide scale, which may or may not be observed during natural disaster (Dora & Kumar, 2020 ; Thompson & Anderson, 2021 ).…”

“…Recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the supply chain network worldwide, resulting in substantial business and economic losses globally, and took away millions of lives (Dohale, Ambilkar, et al, 2021 ; Dohale, Gunasekaran, et al, 2021 ; Dohale, Verma, et al, 2021 ). As reported by World Bank, the global GDP could observe the contraction of 5.2% and stated it as the “deepest global recession in decades” (World Bank, 2020 ).…”