Supply chain resilience during pandemic disruption: evidence from healthcare

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to explore how resilience is evident in healthcare supply chains in the public sector when faced with pandemic disruption and to identify any learnings to inform recovery and future-readiness phases. Design/methodology/approach An exploratory case study was conducted, consisting of seven semi-structured interviews with public sector supply chain actors in the healthcare personal protective equipment supply chain. The data included document analysis. Findings Key findings show how specific resilience strategies such as agility, collaboration, flexibility and redundancy, contributed to supply chain resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic response. Collaboration is identified as a key mechanism for resilience with public sector networks viewed as facilitating this. Established collaborative relationships with suppliers pre-pandemic did not support increased visibility of tiers within the supply chain. Originality/value This is one of the first papers to provide in-depth resilience insights through an example of healthcare supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Impact of COVID-19 Disruptions on Hotel Supply Chain Resilience and Robustness: The Role of Risk Alleviation Practices

“…Two weeks later, 24 hotels responded, but four of them were omitted for incomplete responses. The study scales were formulated after being revised and validated in prior studies (Oliva et al, 2019;Ivanov & Dolgui, 2020;El Baz & Ruel, 2021;Scala & Lindsay, 2021). In this sense, respondents were asked to identify the extent of Covid-19 disruptions impacts on their SC performance based on three predefined metrics: the overall effectiveness in managing and operating the SC, suppliers' ability to deliver on time (delivery reliability), and procurement costs.…”

“…The severance risks (high impact) include exceptional or non-traditional events such as the outbreak of epidemics and entail the almost complete disruption of operations due to duration, extreme ambiguity, and cascading effects (El-Baz & Ruel, 2021). Scholars strived to identify practices that can improve supply chain resilience and robustness, such as risk alleviation practices (Scala & Lindsay, 2021). While some studies considered alleviation practices as proactive activities that are implemented preventively before risks and disruptions (Ponomarov & Holocomb, 2009;Brandon-Jones et al, 2014;Liu et al, 2018;Piprani et al, 2020), other studies delineated them as reactive and/or recovery activities following disruptions for recovery (Ali et al, 2017;Pettit et al, 2019).…”

“…Likewise, hotel revenues declined by at least 50% (European Parliament, 2020), which caused liquidity problems for all operators due to the ambiguity prompted by the epidemic in their businesses (González-Torres et al, 2021). Successive and mutating waves of COVID-19 infections are expected in the upcoming years, with enduring disruptions in international supply chains (Scala & Lindsay, 2021). Consequently, experts predict that the hotel sector might take at least six years to recover and return to prior exemplary levels (Belhadi et al, 2021).…”

The effect of production system characteristics on resilience capabilities: a multiple case study

“…Linnenluecke, 2017;Pettit et al, 2019) but mostly not explicitly included in the design of existing studies. Indirectly, context has been addressed though in-depth studies in different sectors such as healthcare (Scala and Lindsay, 2021) or critical infrastructures (Van den Adel et al, 2021). However, there is a lack of empirical studies that address the impact of production systems despite anecdotic evidence of potential differences.…”

Entrepreneurial Leadership, Supply Chain Innovation, and Adaptability: A Cross-national Investigation

“…The vulnerabilities of the SCs worldwide have been exposed by the supply shock resulted from the recent COVID-19 pandemic, forcing firms to reassess their SC capabilities [ 4 ]. The crisis revealed the need of significant changes in the traditional supply network structures to make them more agile, adaptable, and aligned [ 5 ]. The giant Japanese automaker, Toyota, is one example of how market sensing and the ability to quickly adjust to environmental changes can guarantee survival and succeeding at turbulent circumstances.…”