Managing risks of precast concrete supply chain: a case study

Abstract

Precast concrete has typically long lead time, starting from order placement, production stage, to delivery to project site, all of which requires good supply chain management. As a consequence, the risks of its supply chains are inevitable and must be anticipated to ensure the success of a project. The aim of this research is to assess the risks of the supply chain of precast concrete from production to delivery to projects. WKB, a government-owned company that produces precast concrete, has been used as the case study. Activities along the supply chain were mapped based on five dimensions of Supply Chain Operation Reference (SCOR), i.e. Plan – Source – Make – Deliver – Return, upon which risks were identified. Data was collected through in-depth interview and questionnaire survey to key persons of WKB. A 1-5 Likert scale was used to quantify the occurrence and severity of risks along the supply chain. The identified risks were classified into four levels based on the multiplication of the occurrence and the severity, i.e. critical, major, moderate, and minor. A total of nine critical risks were found along the supply chain, i.e. sales forecast and planning for production (Plan); production capacity of natural material vendors (Source); sudden change of production, shortage of skilled workers, additional cost for land stockyard rental, and renewal for industrial land lease license (Make); risk of non-standard transportation (Deliver); defective and failed products (Return). This research provides a valuable understanding of the risks of the precast concrete supply chain and the mitigation strategies.

An overall review of research on prefabricated construction supply chain management

“…In addition, the overall management risks of PCSC (Wang et al. , 2018b; Hatmoko et al. , 2018; Wang, 2019) and stakeholder risks (Luo et al.…”

“…, (2018b) proposed a global disturbance evaluation model to evaluate the uncertainty of prefabricated supply chain. Hatmoko et al. , (2018) identified risk factors in PCSC and found out the key risk factors according to five dimensions of supply chain operation reference (SCOR) model.…”

“…On this basis, Vensim software package was applied to discuss the possible impacts of various risks on the progress , and then, a hybrid dynamic model was developed to analyze the relationships among schedule risks by further evaluating the schedule risks using the Anylogic (Li et al, 2018a). In addition, the overall management risks of PCSC (Wang et al, 2018b;Hatmoko et al, 2018;Wang, 2019) and stakeholder risks (Luo et al, 2019) have also been studied recently. Wang et al, (2018b) proposed a global disturbance evaluation model to evaluate the uncertainty of prefabricated supply chain.…”

“…Wang et al, (2018b) proposed a global disturbance evaluation model to evaluate the uncertainty of prefabricated supply chain. Hatmoko et al, (2018) PCSC and found out the key risk factors according to five dimensions of supply chain operation reference (SCOR) model. Wang (2019) explored the similarity between the risk management in PCSC and discussed the biological immune system.…”

“…The structure of PCSC is becoming more complex, which makes the related risks more prominent (Wang, 2019). The risks of PCSC are inevitable, so they must be anticipated to ensure the success of the project (Hatmoko et al, 2018). Li et al (2016) central strategy could effectively reduce the key schedule risks.…”