Balancing Resilience and Efficiency: A Literature Review on Overcoming Supply Chain Disruptions

Abstract

The supply chain risk management literature differentiates between disruption risk that arises from supply disruptions to normal activities and recurrent risk that arises from problems in coordinating supply and demand in the absence of disruptions. Over the past decades, significant research has been carried out to better understand supply chain resilience, that is, the ability of a supply chain to mitigate disruptions. Supply chain efficiency, that is, the ability to mitigate recurrent risks in the absence of disruptions has been studied even longer. But only recently have the topics of efficiency and resilience been coupled in the supply chain literature. In this literature review, we focus on the intersection of supply chain resilience and supply chain efficiency. We provide a thematic overview of literature streams according to the structure of the underlying supply chains. We identify various gaps in the current literature including areas in multi-echelon and multi-product supply chain research. Furthermore, we consider dual-purpose and dedicated levers for building resilience. Dual-purpose levers are resources that are able to promote efficiency in a supply chain while enhancing resilience in expectation. By contrast, dedicated resilience levers are resources that are able to guarantee the resilience of a supply chain in the face of particular disruptions without benefiting the supply chain in the absence of disruptions. We call for more research to better understand the value of dual-purpose and dedicated resilience levers to overall supply chain performance.