Handling Uncertainty in Supply Chains

Abstract

As indicated in the recent literature, there are two types of risk affecting SCs: (1) risks arising from the problems of coordinating supply and demand and (2) risks arising from disruptions to normal activities. According to this classification, we will continue to consider the issues of uncertainty and risk in this chapter. This chapter analyses purposeful perturbation influences from the point of view of SC security, and non-purposeful perturbation influences from the point of view of SC vulnerability. We describe different kinds of both purposeful and non-purposeful perturbation influences. Subsequently, managerial impacts to handle uncertainty in SCs are addressed. In particular, leverages of SC reliability and flexibility are analysed.