Understanding supply chain robustness

Guilherme E. Vieira1 and Reynaldo Lemos

Abstract This paper reviews important concepts behind supply chain (SC) problems and instability, which lead to the need to design and operate more robust supply chains. Based on several works reviewed, a supply chain is considered robust when it is insensitive to variations or noises in not so regular operating conditions. Those adopting robust-oriented approaches (techniques) will have more chance to stay successful in the market.

I. INTRODUCTION

is one of the most challenging and important problems in supply chain (SC) management (SCM) (Mo and Harrison, 2005). Indeed, it is a primary difficulty in the practical analysis of SC performance. In the absence of randomness, the problems of material and product supply are eliminated; all demands, production, and transportation behavior would be completely fixed, and therefore, perfectly predictable (Sabria and Beamon, 2000). And because supply chain performance is inherently unpredictable and chaotic, supply chain practitioners often must seek safety mechanisms to protect against unforeseen events. Significant efforts have been used to expedite orders, to check order status at frequent intervals, to deploy inventory just-in-case and to add safety margins to lead times, among several other creative ways to counter the occurrence of unforeseen events (Gaonkar and Viswanadham, 2004). Existing ERP (Enterprise Resources Planning), SCM, and other B2B (Business-to-Business) solutions are designed to improve efficiency of supply chains but not to enhance their reliability or robustness under uncertainty. However, a supply chain should be designed for robustness and therefore robustly controlled in order to be and to stay competitive. In fact, under the intense competitive scenario prevalent today, competition is no longer between companies but between supply chain networks with similar product offerings, serving the same customer (Gaonkar and Viswanadham, 2004). The objective of a robust supply chain is to ensure that the supply chains network structure and its management (and control) policies will operate well under a wide variety of situations which leads towards risk minimization of undesirable outcomes. During the initial steps of a supply chain structure design, the user often assumes that the design
NCERTAINTY

1 Corresponding author. Address: Engineering, 2 Andar Bloco 3 Tecnologico, Imaculada Conceicao 1155, Universidade Catolica do Parana, Curitiba, Parana, BRAZIL. guilherme@pq.cnpq.br Telephone: +55 41 Fax: +55 41 3271 1345.

Industrial Parque Pontifcia 80215-901, E-mail: 3271 1333,

is optimal based on a series of assumptions (expected demand, lead time, etc) and will operate as efficiently and effectively as possible. Perhaps even more important, if performed properly, design for robustness will ensure that the selected supply chain design will, under less than expected or unusual circumstances, not perform unacceptably poor (Hicks, 1999). This should not be confused with simple variance. Random variance may have been introduced in the first design phases to produce more realistic approaches. So, design for robustness is not centered on randomness and its effects; rather, it is the evaluation of the results of changing some of the external given data assumptions (Hicks, 1999). It is known that demand is not a hundred percent predictable and despite the best forecasting system available, a forecast will always have errors. So, the randomness of the demand is to be taken into account at the earlier stages of the supply chain design and operation. However, if the demand reaches unexpected variation levels, the supply chain must be robust enough to deal with this variation so that the undesirable outcomes can be minimized (note that avoiding this unexpected randomness is out of someones control). Supply chain robustness is needed but how exactly can one make a supply chain more robust? In the literature, one can find two main approaches to analyze robustness: Analytical models (mainly based on linear and non-linear mathematical models) and simulation-based approaches. From these, the first one is by far the most commonly used. Many researchers have modeled supply chain robustness as an optimization mathematical model, often considering probability of occurrence of different scenarios. Then, the optimal values for parameters like quantity shipped from site to site or quantity to be produced are determined (Mo and Harrison, 2005; Gaonkar and Viswanadham, 2004; Yu and Li, 2000; Bertsimas and Thiele, 2004; and Leung et al., 2007). On the other hand, Tee and Rossetti (2002) use simulation to assess system robustness while many have used discrete computer simulation to evaluate supply chain performance only (Reiner, 2005; Tee and Rossetti, 2001; Vieira and Cesar, 2005; Vieira, 2004; and Vieira and Cesar, 2004). In practice, a company often carries (safety) inventory (from raw-materials to finished goods) to protect itself from running out of stock owing to uncertainty (i.e., long lead times, demand fluctuations, etc.) and eventually not meeting demand, and consequently, not selling as much product as it could (besides having to pay penalty fees for late deliveries and/or having its image deteriorated). However, carrying too much inventory to minimize the risk for these problems, however, has its obvious negative financial (and operational)

implications. A robust supply chain can better deal with random events that cause these problems at a lower cost. The paper reviews important concepts about supply chain and SC robustness, explains some of the causes of SC problems and instability and describes ideas behind the design for robustness and design of experiments (DOE) that can be used to analyze SC robustness. Final considerations and suggestions for future research are given at the end. II. SUPPLY CHAIN ROBUSTNESS According to Mo and Harrison (2005), the concept of robust design was first introduced by Genuchi Taguchi in the 1960s, and was subsequently accepted in the field of experimental design and quality control. The basic idea of robust design is to make a manufacturing process insensitive to noise factors. Taguchi divided variables into two categories: design factors and noise factors. Design factors are controllable decisions affecting a process while noise factors are those variables representing field sources of variation. The goal is to design a product or process to be robust to noise. One way to determine a robust design is to find a set of design variables that provides the minimum deviation from a target value of the response when noise variables are considered at different levels. Gaonkar and Viswanadham (2004) state that in a perfect world, the plans generated by the channel (a dominant organization in a supply chain) master would allow all the partners to synchronize their activities and business processes leading to greater efficiencies and profits for everyone. For example, components would arrive at the assembler site on time for production to start, adequate inventory of all components would be available before production and demand would be deterministically predictable. However, in the practical world, uncertainty rules. Consequentially, sales routinely deviate from forecasts; components are damaged in transit; production yields fail to meet plan; and shipments are held up in customs. In truth, schedule execution as per plans generated by supply chain planning is just a myth. Supply chains need to be robust at three levels, strategic, tactical, and operational, and they need to be able to handle minor regular operating deviations and major disruptions at each of these levels as seen in Table 1. For example, at the operational level, companies require decision support systems that can act on information from various partners regarding various deviations and disruptions to reschedule activities so that the business processes are synchronized and deliveries are undertaken within customer delivery windows and cost limitations. At the tactical level, plans need to have redundancies in terms of human and machine resources and also logistics and supply organizations. At the strategic level, more reliable partners with intrinsic capabilities in deviation and disruption handling, and the skills and ability to adapt to changing market conditions will be preferred and selected (Gaonkar and Viswanadham, 2004).

Table 1. Types of deviations (Gaonkar and Viswanadham, 2004) Planning Level Strategic Type Event Deviation Disruption Deviation Disruption Deviation Disruption of Example Logistics/Manufacturin g Capacity addition Supplier bankruptcy Order forecast Port strike Lead-time variation Machine/Truck breakdown

Tactical Operational

The strategic level relates mainly to the design of the physical supply chain, in term of, for instance, number of participants in each SC echelon (level) and their location it should, therefore, be addressed more closely during the SC design phases. Supply chain design models determine strategic decisions, such as the most cost-effective location of facilities (including plants and distribution centers), flow of goods, services, information and funds throughout the supply chain, and assignment of customers to distribution centers (Mo and Harrison, 2005; Sabria and Beamon, 2000). These types of models do not seek to determine required inventory levels, and customer service levels (Sabria and Beamon, 2000). Gaonkar and Viswanadham (2004) also focused on the design of robust supply chains at the strategic level through the selection of suppliers that minimize the variability of supply chain performance in terms of cost and output. Tactical and operational planning deals mainly with policies and methods adopted by the SC members to create and maintain robustness. The main aspects that can be considered in these classes are probably related to production planning and scheduling, sourcing variability, demand uncertainty and forecasting, and selection and use of transportation operators. Hicks (1999) and Mo and Harrison (2005), however, focus on design supply chain robustness whereas this research focuses on the operational side of SC robustness, which could also be called supply chain operations robustness. According to Sabria and Beamon (2000), the main purpose of the optimization at the operational level is to determine the safety stock for each product at each location, the size and frequency of the product batches that are replenished or assembled, the replenishment transport and production lead times, and the customer service levels. The research concentrates on the sourcing, planning, scheduling and demand aspects of a supply chain operation from the robustness point-of-view. Within this category, supplier and production lead-time variances, collaboration aspects, risk management and scheduling robustness are of particular interest in the overall aspects of this study. In order to quickly adapt to fluctuating market demands, the resource allocation and the scheduling (configuration) of a flexible manufacturing system (FMS) should not simply be optimized for the current production plan, rather, it should ideally be optimized for robustness against the variation in

production plans, so that the system can deal with the variation with minimal reconfiguration while achieving consistently efficient production under all production plans of interest (Saitou et al., 2002; Saitou and Malpathak, 1999). Saitou and Malpathak (1999) specifically define the FMS robustness as the insensitivity of production performance against variations in the production plan. (Analyzing robustness from this point-of-view is also a very interesting research area, but is not part of this research.) The reader is also encouraged to look at [Saitou and Qvam, 1998; Bulgak et al., 1999; and Shang, 1995) for more information on FMS robustness. The ideas from Saitu et al. (2002) and Saitou and Malpathak (1999) can certainly be extrapolated to supply chain systems, where minimal reconfiguration of resources (suppliers, transporters, distribution centers, manufacturing plants), production, and transportation schedules in face of unexpected events make a robust supply chain. In this case, decision variables are resource allocation and production schedules (plans). The less changes that are applied to these variables, the more robust the system is. In the case of a SC, there are other decision variables, such as supplier reallocation, new supplier contracts, re-allocation of transportation routes, re-assignment of production from a plant to another, re-assignment of product from one DC to another or even from on retailer to another. It is a combination of factors: One will try to minimize changes to production schedules/plans, collection and distribution plans, suppliers. Reallocating material from one site to another (plant to plant, or DC to DC, for instance) can help the chain better deal with the unexpected event(s) and consequently, minimize disruptions and negative consequences of these events. The better and faster the SC can do this, the more robust it will be. For a SC to be considered robust, it is not enough to have only one link of the chain be robust (if this is possible) but all the main participants of the supply chain must strive for robustness as a unit. SC robustness depends heavily on the cooperation (collaboration) of its participants. Imagine a disaster event happening in one part of the country. The population demand for bare necessities in that region would vary (in this case, grow) much more than planned. Retailers may want to re-allocate goods from other sites; their transportation system must be able to cope with these new transportation needs. Industries would need to focus more on the needs of that part of the country, and consequently, the respective suppliers of these industries. The whole chain would have to be mobilized, prepared and willing to collaborate to minimize the effect on the service level that the disaster would cause. Another (simpler) situation would be when it takes much longer to receive a shipment from a supplier then expected (especially when it involves international suppliers, since the distance, bureaucracy, and paper works can really make it more difficult to manage). Stages downstream will have to deal with this unexpected delay. For some industry sectors, even upstream stages are affected as well. This is usually the case with car assembly plants. A late shipment from a

supplier can make the car maker re-schedule its production and as a consequence, other suppliers will have to deal with the new MRP and deliver the unexpected goods to the car maker. III. MAIN CAUSES OF SUPPLY CHAIN PROBLEMS AND
INSTABILITY

As mentioned previously, random factors in a supply chain can reach undesirable levels and combinations, asserting the need for a SC designed and operated for robustness. Some of the problems that cause instability and perturb the systems performance are related to the following factors. Supplier lead time. Poor product quality received from supplier. Demand variations. Production stoppages due to random machine failures, workers strike, severe weather conditions. From these, supplier lead time and demand variations are probably the most important aspects for most companies, and for this reason, these variables are given more attention in this research. (A more general review of problems for instability is given by (Gaonkar and Viswanadham, 2004). A classification of disruptions modes that occur in a supply chain, causing instability and performance degeneration are shown in Table 2.
Table 2. Modes of disruptions (Gaonkar and Viswanadham, 2004) Modes of Disruptions Supply side Description Delay or unavailability of materials from suppliers, leading to a shortage of inputs that could paralyze the production. Delay or unavailability of either inbound or outbound transportation to move goods due to carrier breakdown or weather problems. Breakdown of machine, power or water failure leading to delay or unavailability of plants, warehouses and office buildings. Violation of the integrity of cargoes, products (can be due either to theft or tempering with criminal purpose, e.g. smuggling weapon inside containers) or company proprietary information. Failure of information and communication infrastructure due to line, computer hardware or software failures or virus attacks, leading to the inability to coordinate operations and execute transactions. Sudden loss of demand due to economic downturn, company bankruptcies, war, etc.

Transportation

Facilities

Breaches in freight or partnerships

Failed Communications

Wild demand fluctuations

Based on its nature, uncertainty in the supply chain may manifest itself in three broad forms - deviation, disruption and disaster (Gaonkar and Viswanadham, 2004). A deviation is said to have occurred when one or more parameters, such as cost, demand, or lead-time within the supply chain system stray from their expected or mean value,

without any changes to the underlying supply chain structure. A disruption occurs when the structure of the supply chain is radically transformed, through the non-availability of certain production, warehousing and distribution facilities or transportation options due to unexpected events caused by human or nature. A disaster is defined as a temporary irrecoverable shutdown of the supply chain network due to unforeseen catastrophic system-wide disruptions. In general, it is possible to design supply chains that are robust enough to profitably continue operations in the face of expected deviations and unexpected disruptions. However, it is impossible to design a supply chain network that is robust enough to react to disasters. However, to better manage the uncertainties in the supply chain it is necessary to identify the exceptions that can occur in the chain, estimate the probabilities of their occurrence map out the chain of immediate and delayed consequential events that propagate through the chain and quantify their impact. In this context, it becomes important to identify the possible exceptions in a supply chain and their consequences before proceeding to the development of analytical models (Gaonkar and Viswanadham, 2004). Robust optimization generates supply chain solutions that maintain their optimality under minor deviations in environmental conditions (Gaonkar and Viswanadham, 2004). In other words, supply chain robustness is related to the ability of the SC to maintain it expected performance, despite some unexpected deviations or disruptions. Since robustness is the insensitivity of production performances (Saitou and Malpathak, 1999), or the ability to maintain a certain performance level, despite unpredicted harmful uncertainty, an analysis to measure SC robustness needs to consider appropriate performance metrics. Performance measures that can be used must consider indicators commonly used by industries, such as inventory levels, customer order lead-times, and customer service level. Besides these, an indicator of the bullwhip effect is also an interesting measure. IV. DESIGN FOR ROBUSTNESS AND EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN According to Park (1996), robust design is an engineering methodology for optimizing the product and process conditions so that they are minimally sensitive to different causes of variations, and which produce highquality products with low development and manufacturing costs. Taguchi extensively uses experimental designs primarily as a tool to design products which are more robust (less sensitive) to noise factors. Taguchis parameter design is an important tool for robust design. His tolerance design can be also classified as a robust design. In a narrow sense robust design is identical to parameter design, but in a wider sense, parameter design is a subset of robust design. Two major tools used in robust design are: Signal-to-noise ratio, which measures quality with emphasis on variation; Orthogonal arrays, which accommodate many design factors (parameters) simultaneously.

The overall quality system should be designed to produce a product (process, or, in this case, a supply chain) that is robust with respect to all noise factors (i.e., undesirable and uncontrollable sources that cause deviation from target values in products (or process) functional characteristics). In order to achieve robustness, the product and the process should be designed so that they are minimally sensitive to noise factors (Park, 1996). Experiments are carried out by researchers or engineers in all fields of study to compare the effects of several conditions or to discover something new. If an experiment is to be performed most efficiently, then a scientific approach to planning it must be considered. The statistical design of experiments is the process of planning experiments so that appropriate data will be collected, the minimum number of experiments will be performed to acquire the necessary technical information, and suitable statistical methods will be used to analyze the collected data. The statistical approach to experimental design is necessary if one wishes to draw meaningful conclusions from the data. There are two aspects to any experimental design: the design of the experiment and the statistical analysis of the collected data (Park, 1996). There are five different types of designs which differ according to the experimental objective they meet as follows (NIST/SEMATECH, 2007). Comparative objective: If you have one or several factors under investigation, but the primary goal of your experiment is to make a conclusion about one apriori important factor, (in the presence of, and/or in spite of the existence of the other factors), and the question of interest is whether or not that factor is "significant", (i.e., whether or not there is a significant change in the response for different levels of that factor), then you have a comparative problem and you need a comparative design solution. Screening objective: The primary purpose of the experiment is to select or screen out the few important main effects from the many less important ones. These screening designs are also termed main effects designs. Response Surface (method) objective: The experiment is designed to allow one to estimate the interaction between factors including even quadratic effects and to develop the (local) shape of the response surface. For this reason, they are termed response surface method (RSM) designs. RSM designs are used to (a) find improved or optimal process settings, (b) troubleshoot process problems and weak points, and (c) Make a product or process more robust against external and noncontrollable influences. "Robust" means relatively insensitive to these influences. Optimizing responses when factors are proportions of a mixture objective: If you have factors that are proportions of a mixture and you want to know what the "best" proportions of the factors are so as to maximize (or minimize) a response, then you need a mixture design.

 Optimal fitting of a regression model objective: If you want to model a response as a mathematical function (either known or empirical) of a few continuous factors and you desire "good" model parameter estimates (i.e., unbiased and minimum variance), then you need a regression design. The term `Screening Design' refers to an experimental plan that is intended to find the few significant factors from a list of many potential ones. Alternatively, one may refer to a design as a screening design if its primary purpose is to identify significant main effects, rather than interaction effects, the latter being assumed an order of magnitude less important (Tee and Rossetti, 2001). The basic purpose of a fractional factorial design is to economically investigate cause-and-effect relationships of significance in a given experimental setting. For example, an experiment might be designed to determine how to make a product better or a process more robust against the influence of external and non-controllable influences (NIST/SEMATECH, 2007). Park (1996) also mentions that fractional factorial designs that use orthogonal arrays are often employed in order to screen the important factors that impact product (or process) performance. Experiments might be designed to troubleshoot a process, to determine bottlenecks, or to specify which component(s) of a product are most in need of improvement. Experiments might also be designed to optimize yield, or to minimize defect levels, or to move a process away from an unstable operating zone. All these aims and purposes can be achieved using fractional factorial designs and their appropriate design enhancements (NIST/SEMATECH, 2007). Park (1996) states that fractional factorial designs are often inevitable in industrial experiments since there are many factors concerned, and the number of possible experiments is limited owing to cost and time. Existing fractional factorial layouts are quite limited and difficult to use. Robust design adds a new dimension to conventional experimental design. Taguchi developed the foundations of robust design and the concept of robust design has many aspects, among them are (Park, 1996): 1. Finding set of conditions for design variables which are robust to noise; 2. Achieving the smallest variation in a products function about a desired target value; 3. Minimizing the number of experiments using orthogonal arrays (OA) and testing for confirmation. In fact, use of OA is indispensable for robust design. In this context, a methodology has been proposed for the estimation of SC robustness based on Taguchis robust parameter design (signal-to-noise and orthogonal arrays DOEs); a robustness index formulae; discrete computer simulation; and use of spreadsheets calculation an analysis (Vieira et al., 2009). This methodology follows nine basic steps (Figure 1). Some of these steps are not strictly sequential; the designer should go back and forth as necessary.

The uncontrollable parameters in the supply chain can be parameters related to the distributions that model the consumer (market) demand, processing and setup times, transportation times, and failure and repair times. The controllable parameters are those regarding the configuration of the operation policy adopted, for instance, inventory control or forecasting policies, number of trucks in a distribution network, etc.
1. Define key performance indicator (KPI)

2. Define uncontrollable parameters

3. Define design (controllable) parameters and scenarios

4. Model noise: the two levels for the uncontrollable factors

5. Quantifying supply chain robustness using the robustness index model 6. Define significance level (for F-test, confidence intervals and number of replications) 7. Create the orthogonal arrays and confounding factors (Ftests) use of spreadsheets 8. Analysis of input data use of statistical data (e.g. INPUT ANALYZER ARENA, MiniTab, R) 9. Development and validation of the simulation model for the current SC scenario use of discrete simulation software

10. Development of alternative scenarios

11. Run simulation experiments and put results back at the Ftest tables 12. Calculate robustness (RI) for the scenarios and perform analysis and comparisons Figure 1. The proposed methodology for the design of robustness-oriented supply chains.

V. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS Supply chain robustness is still a concept not perfectly defined in the literature, at least, not in the logistics or supply chain field. However, it is something enterprises should pursuit in order to stay alive in the though competitive world of nowadays. This paper brought together some of the concepts and ideas that can be used to design and operate a robust supply chain. Future studies can consider, for instance: used of Taguchis robust parameter design approach in order to better estimate the appropriate level for the design parameters to deal with the noise factors; Response surface design and analysis to model and evaluate SC robustness;

analysis of the relationship between supply chain robustness and its bullwhip effect. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The corresponding author would like to thank the Pontifical Catholic University of Parana (PUCPR), the Coordenao de Aperfeioamento de Pessoal de Nvel Superior (CAPES), and the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientfico e Tecnolgico (CNPq) for the financial support. REFERENCES
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