Operational risk identification in ground transportation activities: Ontology—approach

Abstract

Supply chain risk management (SCRM) is an important activity in current supply chain management (SCM) and operational risk (OR) is one of the most relevant risk in supply chains (SC). The Supply Chain Risk Management System (SCRMS) consists in four activities: risk identification, risk assessment, risk management and risk monitoring. Risk identification is one of the most decisive because if risks are no clearly identified is not possible to manage them, so Companies must develop tools to improve risk identification and risk information sharing among the whole chain. The participation of Third Party Logistics providers (3PL) in supply chains has been increasing, and it is necessary to consider how their presence affects risk management. On the other hand, ontology defines a common vocabulary to share information in a domain. Considering all these aspects, we propose an ontology approach to operational risk identification in supply chain that involves third party logistics providers. The ontology-based approach is oriented to improve communications about risks through the whole supply chain, achieving better results in risks management activities. The approach was validated in ground transportation activities and seems that is useful not only to risk identification but to the others steps in Supply Chain Risk Management System.