Ripple Effect and Supply Chain Disruption Management

Research on supply chain (SC) disruption management has focused on both empirical and analytical methodologies in understanding and appeasing risk. Irrespective of the methodology utilized, majority of the work in this domain has concentrated on disruption impact on strategic/tactical/operational performance and stabilization/recovery policies. A significant number of disruption studies has analysed how one or more events ripple throughout the SC and impact performance thus placing increased emphasis on the ripple effect in SC. Some recent studies on the ripple effect and the related SC resilience issues can be found in the bibliography of this Call for Papers.

The ripple effect occurs when a disruption, rather than remaining localized or being contained to one part of the SC, cascades downstream and impacts the performance of the SC.  This impact might include lower revenues, delivery delays, loss of market share and reputation, etc., which has adverse effects on the profitability of SC.  This Special Issue intends to present recent developments on the ripple effect in the SC for larger audience. Ripple effect describes the impact of a disruption propagation on SC performance and disruption-based scope of changes in SC structural design and planning parameters. The Special Issue aims at delineating major features of the ripple effect and methodologies to mitigate the SC disruptions and recover. It focuses on studies that address the ripple effect and provide a comprehensive vision of the state of the art and perspectives. The methodologies comprise of mathematical optimization, simulation, game theory, control theoretic, data-driven analytics, network complexity, reliability theory research, and empirical research. Even though a variety of valuable insights have been developed in this area in recent years, new research avenues and ripple effect taxonomies need to be identified for the near future.

The Special Issue is expected to furnish fresh insights for SC management and engineering regarding the following questions:

Under what circumstances does one failure cause other failures?
Which structures of the SC are especially susceptible to the ripple effect?
What are the typical ripple effect scenarios and what is the most efficient way to respond to them?

Given these reflections, multiple ways to apply quantitative analysis to ripple effect modelling arise. Several research gaps might be addressed by the ability to dynamically change parameters during experiments and to observe how these changes impact performance in real time, e.g. considering:

• disruption propagation in the SC;

• dynamic recovery policies;

• gradual capacity degradation and recovery;

• multiple performance impact dimensions including financial and operational performance.

This special issue of IJPR aims to collate and present recent research examinations in the field of SC ripple effect and resilience. The focus would be on new antecedents of SC ripple effect mitigation - human, machine, process, and information technology based - and their singular and combined impact on flexibility outcomes. The methodology encompasses a multi-disciplinary operational perspective that includes different analytical methods as well as empirical studies. 

连锁反应与供应链中断管理

在供应链（SC）中断领域，已经有实证和数学分析研究对理解和缓解风险进行了探索。无论采用何种方法，该领域的大部分工作都集中在中断对战略/战术/运营绩效的影响和稳定/恢复政策上。大量的中断研究分析了一个或多个事件如何在整个SC中波动并影响绩效，从而更加强调SC中的连锁反应。最近关于连锁反应和相关的SC弹性问题的一些研究可以在此征文的参考书目中找到。

当中断发生在下游，而不是保持局部化或被包含在SC的一部分中，并影响SC的绩效时，会发生连锁反应。这种影响可能包括收入减少，交付延迟，市场份额和声誉损失等，这对SC的盈利能力产生了不利影响。本期特刊旨在向大众介绍SC的连锁反应的影响。连锁反应描述了中断传播对SC绩效以及基于中断的SC结构设计和规划参数的变化范围的影响。此特刊旨在描述连锁反应的主要特征和减轻SC中断和恢复的方法。此特刊侧重于强调连锁反应，并对现有技术和观点具有全面了解的研究。研究方法包括数学优化，模拟，博弈论，控制理论，数据驱动分析，网络复杂性，可靠性理论研究和实证研究。尽管近年来在这一领域已经形成了各种有价值的见解，但在不久的将来，新的研究途径和连锁反应分类就需要被定义。

此特刊希望为SC管理和工程提供有关以下问题的新见解：

在什么情况下一个故障会导致其他故障？

SC的哪些结构特别容易受到连锁反应的影响？

什么是典型的连锁反应场景以及响应它们的最有效方法是什么？

将定量分析应用于连锁反应建模存在多种方法。通过在实验期间动态改变参数并观察这些变化如何实时影响绩效可以填补一些现有文献的空白。例如：

•SC中断的传播;

•动态恢复政策;

•逐步的能力退化和恢复;

•多个绩效影响维度，包括财务和运营绩效。

IJPR的这期特刊旨在整理和介绍SC连锁反应领域的最新研究。特刊的重点将放在SC连锁反应缓解的前提上- 基于人力，机器，过程和信息技术- 以及它们对灵活性结果的单独和综合影响。研究方法包括多学科的操作视角，包括不同的分析方法和实证研究。