A subjective risk analysis approach of container supply chains

Abstract

After the 9/11 terrorism attacks, the lock-out of the American West Ports in 2002 and the breakout of SARS disease in 2003 have further focused mind of both the public and industrialists to take effective and timely measures for assessing and controlling the risks related to container supply chains (CSCs). However, due to the complexity of the risks in the chains, conventional quantitative risk assessment (QRA) methods may not be capable of providing sufficient safety management information, as achieving such a functionality requires enabling the possibility of conducting risk analysis in view of the challenges and uncertainties posed by the unavailability and incompleteness of historical failure data. Combing the fuzzy set theory (FST) and an evidential reasoning (ER) approach, the paper presents a subjective method to deal with the vulnerability-based risks, which are more ubiquitous and uncertain than the traditional hazard-based ones in the chains.