Managing supply chains during COVID-19 outbreak: a case of Hong Kong toy manufacturing company

Abstract

PurposeThis study aims to identify key supply chain challenges and opportunities of the case of Hong Kong toy manufacturing company during the COVID-19 outbreak and develop a comprehensive structural relationship to rank them.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, a toy model company in Hong Kong is considered to discuss about what challenges and opportunities have the biggest impacts on non-necessary goods companies and how to deal with different impacts on entire supply chain flow disruption during COVID-19. A semi-structured interview with five decision-makers from the company was made to give key challenges and opportunities scores. The Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) technique is used to establish the model and rank them afterward to overcome the challenges.FindingsFrom the data analysis and results, “salary of employee” and “inconvenient transportation” have emerged as top and bottom key challenges respectively. The sequence of organized challenges in the list needs to mitigate one by one in this order to improve the supply chain performance. The “client's orders’ frequency, customer management” and “supplier/partner relationship management” are identified as the top and bottom respectively to develop the opportunities.Research limitations/implicationsThese key challenges and opportunities are identified as contributing attributes and provide the way to measure to improve production, profits and sustainable growth of the toy manufacturing company during a pandemic. Moreover, it helps to improve the distribution level and good planning with appropriate decision making to manage the supply chain performance considering humanitarian aspects during a pandemic outbreak.Originality/valueThe novelty of this study is to identify the key supply chain challenges and opportunities measured by the TOPSIS method to rank them and consider the case of a Hong Kong toy manufacturing company as a case-based approach to measuring its performance during the COVID-19 outbreak.

An empirical investigation of repeated donations on crowdfunding platforms during COVID-19

“…Funding systems and fund characteristics strongly impact the success of HOs in fulfilling their needs and those of donors. Many articles are available on humanitarian supply chain management (HSCM) and managing and raising donations (Behl et al, 2019a ; Kumar et al, 2022 ). In contrast, a limited but growing body of literature has explored topics within the field of the interface between funding and humanitarian supply chains (HSC).…”

Adoption of human resource sourcing strategies for managing supply chain performance during COVID-19 crisis: evidence from manufacturing companies

“…In this study, all the loading of factor analysis (twenty-nine items of HR sourcing strategies and six items of supply chain performance) were found to be greater than 0.50, as presented in Table 2. Only one-factor loading for VE5 is less than 0.5, which is also acceptable (Kumar et al ., 2022a, b). As a result, a conceptual framework with six independent and one dependent variable is sufficient to represent data.…”

“…Even though it could be helpful, not much research has been done on how this method could help the supply chain SC. Also, global sourcing requires reducing the geographical distance between the supplier base and the buyer and requires a lot of work in reengineering business processes (Cagliano et al ., 2012; Kumar et al ., 2022a, b).…”

Cross-Border Toy Supply Chain Management from a Global Perspective

“…Brand value: The implementation of sustainable cross-border supply chain management can enhance the social image and reputation of toy companies, help attract more consumers, especially those with strong environmental awareness, and improve their market competitiveness so as to better seize market share [9].…”