Reconfigurable supply chain: the X-network

By Alexandre Dolgui, Dmitry A. Ivanov, Boris V. Sokolov. International Journal of Production Research, 2020

421 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Research on supply chain (SC) digitalization, resilience, sustainability and leagility has remarkably progressed, most of it focused on the individual contributions of these four major frameworks. However, a lack of integration spanning these individual frameworks can be observed. In this conceptual paper, we hypothesize that reconfigurability can be considered such an integral perspective that consolidates the research in SC adaptation to ever changing environments. We theorize a new notion – a Reconfigurable SC or the X-network – that exhibits some crucial design and control characteristics for complex value-adding systems in highly vulnerable environments. We support our argumentation and conceptual viewpoints by a literature analysis along with tertiary studies to review and structure contextual factors of designing the X-networks. We propose respective frameworks and discuss the implementation principles and technologies at the macro and micro levels. Two novel concepts – dynamic SC meta-structures and dynamic autonomous services – are introduced. Distinctively, we go beyond the existing knowledge to predict proactively the future directions in the reconfigurable SCs. Our results can be of value for decision-makers to decipher chances and barriers in contemporary SC transformations.

Subfields: Management Information Systems, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8a956fafcb03015fe618e851cfe05d01002a59f9

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Citations in the corpus

Improving supply chain resilience through industry 4.0: A systematic literature review under the impressions of the COVID-19 pandemic (2021, neutral): “…and implications for SCRM Choi et al. (2018) x x Discussion of a new SC typology (“the X-network”) with resilience and digitalization characteristics Dolgui et al. (2020) x x x x x Application of BDA and IoT approaches in SC planning under causal and temporal uncertainty Dunke et al. (2018) x x…”
The Industry 5.0 framework: viability-based integration of the resilience, sustainability, and human-centricity perspectives (2022, background): “In this setting, a Viable Supply ChainModel (Ivanov 2020b) and reconfigurable supply chains (Dolgui et al. 2020) can be considered as interesting research avenues to be applied under conditions of a shortage economy.”
Analysis of resilience strategies and ripple effect in blockchain-coordinated supply chains: An agent-based simulation study (2020, background): “…2016; Papadopoulos et al., 2017; Stecke and Kumar, 2009) and the effects of disruptions no longer only affect individual members but tend to spread across the entire network, a phenomenon known as the ripple effect (Dolgui et al., 2018, Dolgui et al., 2020b; Ivanov, 2018a; Pavlov et al., 2019).”
Supply Chain Viability and the COVID-19 pandemic: a conceptual and formal generalisation of four major adaptation strategies (2021, methodology): “The pandemic context has motivated a new rise in SC resilience research (Bier, Lange, and Glock 2020; Chauhan, Perera, and Brintrup 2020; Dolgui, Ivanov, and Sokolov 2020; Dubey et al. 2021; Lücker, Chopra, and Seifert 2020; Namdar et al. 2020; Sawik 2019; Sawik 2020; Xu et al. 2020).”