Antecedents and enablers of supply chain reconfigurability and their effects on performance

Abstract

The reconfiguration of supply chain is becoming a crucial concept used to deal with market disruptions and changes such as the COVID-19 pandemic, demand uncertainty, and new technologies. It can be defined as the ability of the supply chain to change its structure and functions in order to adapt to new changes. Its assessment requires an understanding of its quantitative factors to provide indicators that are easy to interpret. Effective reconfigurability assessment can be achieved by measuring quantitatively its six characteristics (modularity, integrability, convertibility, diagnosability, scalability, and customization). This paper aims at identifying the quantitative factors of each characteristic and their inter-relationships by using Total Interpretive Structural Modelling (TISM). The structural model obtained by TISM is applied to understand the dependency quantitative factors. Based on TISM results, a classification of quantitative factors is determined using “Matrice d′Impacts Croisés, Multiplication Appliquée à un Classement” (MICMAC) analysis. This article provides a better understanding of the six characteristics previously mentioned to improve the reconfigurability of supply chains by considering the interactions between their factors. Thus, this analysis helps managers to understand the characteristics that influence the change of the supply chain structure and those that enable changing the supply chain functions in order to optimize the supply chain reconfiguration process.