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: Further, the cost of recovering containers and shipments that were “lost” in the melee ran into millions of dollars. * A retailer stated that the most severe types of supply chain disruptions occurred in overseas location due to poor communication and customs procedures at major shipping ports, as well as slowdowns attributed to labor disputes in specific countries. He also noted however that planning around these disruptions was possible, as some of them were predictable. For example, labor strikes in shipping, trains, and transportation seem to occur almost every year in the summer between Wednesday and Friday, so that workers get an extended holiday weekend! * At a major textile/chemical company, lead-times for raw materials from a sole source supplier in Japan were six months. The raw material was ‘designed in’ by the customer, and subcontracted for manufacturer. When the final customer (a large retail chain) decided to abruptly discontinue the product, the company was “stuck” with a six month inventory of material that could not be allocated to other products. The large number of tiers in the supply chain and the poor communication between tiers, led to a multi-million dollar write-off for the company. The complexity of the product or process
The second amplifier of supply chain disruptions and risk we discovered is product and process complexity, defined as the degree of difficulty in measuring and managing the number of different components and entities in the supply chain from supplier to end customer. Complexity is driven by several factors.