Title: Amplifiers of Supply Chain Disruptions: A Managerial Framework for Reducing the Impact of Disruption to the Supply Chain | SCM | Supply Chain Resource Cooperative (SCRC) | North Carolina State UniversitySupply Chain Resource Cooperative | NC State University
Headings: Amplifiers of Supply Chain Disruptions: A Managerial Framework for Reducing the Impact of Disruption to the Supply Chain
Amplifiers of Supply Chain Disruptions: A Managerial Framework for Reducing the Impact of Disruption to the Supply Chain
Amplifiers of Supply Chain Disruptions
The extent to which a firm relies on global sources of supply
The complexity of the product or process
Table 1 – Global Sourcing Amplifiers of Disruption
Table 2 – Product / Process Complexity Amplifiers of Disruption

Content: the other lost major market share due to its slow response. Within each company we studied in this research, we first sought to understand the elements in each company’s supply chain that increased the level of risk that they were exposed to. To discover this, we asked executives to describe to us the types of disruptions experienced in the last five years perceived to be the most serious. After recording their responses, we coded and classified the interview notes, and found that all of their responses fell into one of two categories shown in Tables 1 and 2. We describe these elements that elevate the impact of a disruption as an “amplifier”, which we defined as a characteristic of a supply chain that increases the difficulty of disruption recovery. All of the disruption amplifiers fell into one of two categories: 1) the extent to which a firm relies on global sources of supply, and 2) the complexity of the product or process. The extent to which a firm relies on global sources of supply
Supply Chain Globalization: The number of leverage points and the lead-time associated with ordering and receiving products from low cost countries will amplify the potential impact of the disruption. The growth in low cost country sourcing from places such as China, India, Eastern Europe, and Malaysia is skyrocketing.