Aligning redundancy and flexibility for supply chain resilience: a literature synthesis

Abstract

Redundancy and flexibility are important key drivers for achieving supply chain resilience. However, there is a lack of comparison between these two elements, and their effectiveness on supply chain resilience, as well as how their relationship affects it. To address these problems, this study synthesizes the literature on supply chain resilience, redundancy, and flexibility, and clarifies specific strategies for aligning redundancy and flexibility for supply chain resilience in practice. In particular, it identifies the dimensions of redundancy and flexibility, and delineates four supply chain statuses: vulnerable, robust, lean, and resilient. The understanding leads to a supply chain resilience management framework, which provides operational guidance for enterprises to evaluate supply chain vulnerability and improve operation status. Overall, the framework contributes to the literature with the roles that redundancy and flexibility play in achieving supply chain resilience in terms of their manifestations and interactions.

Keywords:

• Supply chain resilience
• redundancy
• flexibility
• robustness
• supply chain operation model

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China under Grant [No. 20BGL045].