Supply Chain: Vulnerabilities, Challenges, and Stress Test Analysis

This report provides a detailed examination of supply chain vulnerabilities and challenges, exploring key issues such as material scarcity, increasing freight expenses, and the impact of changing consumer behaviors. It delves into the concept of supply chain resilience, outlining methods to measure and enhance it, including collaboration, forecast accuracy, and data velocity. The report further analyzes the existing stress tests for supply chains, emphasizing their role in identifying vulnerabilities and developing robust systems. The methodology includes a literature review covering various themes like vulnerabilities, resilience, and stress testing. The research questions focus on identifying vulnerabilities, assessing areas of lacking resilience, analyzing stress tests, and evaluating their ability to counteract critical vulnerabilities. The report also includes a project plan, a Gantt chart, and a comprehensive list of references.

Literature Survey

Table of Contents
Project Definition........................................................................................................................................3
Background of the study..........................................................................................................................3
Research Questions.................................................................................................................................3
Scope of the study:..................................................................................................................................3
Theme1: To evaluate about the key vulnerability and challenges that tend to exist within the supply
chain........................................................................................................................................................4
Theme 2: To identify and evaluate about the areas where the resilience with a specific set of supply
chain is tend to lacking and developing a beast practice within a specific chain (TBA)..........................5
Theme 3: To identify and critically analyze the existing set of stress tests for the supply chains
developing a robust system for understanding the vulnerabilities within existing supply chain..............7
Theme 4: Analyze how stress testing supply chain tend to counteract critical vulnerabilities.................9
Methodology and resources......................................................................................................................10
Research Type:......................................................................................................................................10
Search strategy:.....................................................................................................................................10
Search terms:.........................................................................................................................................10
Inclusion and exclusion criteria in research:..........................................................................................10
Project plan and risk assessment:..............................................................................................................10
Gantt Chart............................................................................................................................................11
References.................................................................................................................................................11

Project Definition
Background of the study
Supply chain has become a crucial part of each and every company. To ensure future success, it
is important to maintain effectiveness in supply chain. However, it is quite difficult to maintain
continuous efficiency in supply chain. The business managers have to face ample of challeneges
in terms of material scarcity, increasing freight expenses and more during the supply chain
management. The project is about vulnerabilities and challenges of supply chain. Further, there is
discussion regarding the role of stress test in counteract to critical vulnerabilities efficiently.
Research Questions
 What are the key vulnerabilities and challenges that tend to exist within the supply chain?
 What are the areas where the resilience within in a specific set of supply chain is tend to
lacking and developing a beast practice within a specific chain (TBD)?
 Discuss existing set of the stress tests for the supply chains developing a robust system
for understanding the vulnerabilities within existing supply chains?
 How the Stress testing supply chain tend to counteract critical vulnerabilities?
Scope of the study:
The scope of the current studty is wide as it is useful in terms of identifying different aspects
related to challenges and vulnerabilities of supply chain within organization. The present study
will cover vulnerabilities that are faced by the company during supply chain management. Along
with this, it will also include stress testing to control the impact of vulnerabilities effectively.
Literature Review
The literature review refers the opinion, thoughts of other authors. Basically, literature review
provided the necessary information to the researcher in order to complete a project on a specific
topic. It is helpful in gaining detailed insights and knowledge regarding a research topic so that
the project can be completed successfully. In context of present research, the literature review
has been collected regarding the supply chain vulnerabilities and challenges.

Theme1: To evaluate about the key vulnerability and challenges that tend to exist within the
supply chain
According to Wamba and Queiroz, (2020), supply chain refers to the network of different
individuals, resources as well as organizations, technologies in the production and sale of a
product. Supply chain vulnerability can be understood as the disruption which arise through risks
within the supply chain and risk caused from the external environment to supply chain. In supply
chain, there are several risks present which are likely to affect the business operations of a
company.
In the present era, supply chain has become a crucial part of each and every company. To
ensure future success, it is important to maintain effectiveness in supply chain. However, it is
quite difficult to maintain continuous efficiency in supply chain. In this context, the major
challenges of supply chain are mentioned below:
Material Scarcity: Insufficient raw material is the major challenge of supply chain since
the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to unexpected rise in consumer demand, the demand of raw
material as well as finished products has also been increased. Even, the retailers as well as
suppliers are still struggling to fulfill the demand of customers in significant manner (Future of
supply chain: challenges, trends & tips for 2022). It is analyzed that the shortage of basic
material is increasing day by day which is also causing difficulties across the industries.
Increasing freight prices: Need of container shipping has been enhanced throughout the
pandemic. Due to the worldwide lockdown, the demand of products has been increased.
However, the production of products does not enhanced at the same level. This demand was
highly sustainable (Luthra and Mangla, 2018). But, it was not possible to match the level of
demand due to unprecedented shortage and empty container. This scarcity will lead towards rise
in the overall pricing that will create challenge for the overall supply chain management.
Difficult demand forecasting: It is highly difficult to anticipate the demand at the time
of global pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic has shattered the forecast for retailers and
suppliers of products and services. The challenge has also become severe when it comes to make
the prediction regarding demand and needs of customers through data driven research.

Changing consumer attitudes: Nowadays, the attitude as well as behavior of customers
has been changes in ample of ways. To get positive customers experience, it is highly important
to deliver the products and services to the buyers on right time. Here, agile supply chain can
hamper the automation power to optimize the fulfillment. During the pandemic, the ecommerce
demand was high. Increment in sale was better for the sellers but there is requirement to improve
the overall infrastructure in order to fulfill the demand of clients. This will make the organization
enable to offer the best possible services to the customers.
Digital transformation: In supply chain operations IOT and digital transformation can
be used at the same time to get better outcomes. To enhance the outcomes get from the supply
chain, several technologies can be used. Here, the technology includes robot, drones, electric
vehicles and more (Queiroz and Wamba, 2019). However, these systems are used to make the
overall supply chain system more efficient but the challenge lies in implementing them across
the company. It takes huge time to implement the respective technologies in business when
working with multiple channels significantly.
Theme 2: To identify and evaluate about the areas where the resilience with a specific set of
supply chain is tend to lacking and developing a beast practice within a specific chain (TBA)
According to Hoey, 2021, it is analyzed that measuring the resilience of supply chain is
important to get the positive outcomes in an efficient manner. The reliability of a supply network
is examined by multiplying the reliability of individual of each and every company. For certain
authors, reliability is used as a measure of the ability of supply network to handle the risk
efficiently. A resilient supply chain refers the capacity of resistance and recovery. Basically, this
shows the capability to resist and avoid the impact of supply chain disruption. Also, it refers the
ability to recover from the disruption promptly. It is monitored that operational risk as well as
interruption can affect different areas of global supply chain (Building a resilient supply chain
network, 2022). In order to make the resilience in supply chain, it is imperative to identify the
vulnerabilities in supply chain. For this purpose, there is requirement to identify the vulnerability
so that the business managers can taka suitable steps in order to deal with such vulnerabilities.
There is requirement to conduct a risk assessment with an aim to understand the significant
vulnerabilities within the supply chain.

To get a sense in easy manner regarding the resilience of supply chain network. There are
a number of factors that acts as a strong predictor of supply chain resilence. Here, resilience is a
function to assess the future disruption in an efficient manner. It is helpful in resisting the
negative impact of such disruption (Pettit, Croxton and Fiksel, 2019). Also, it makes the
business managers enable to respond towards the disruptions and take prompt decisions to make
changes in the condition as per requirement. In order to accomplish the pre-defined plans, there
needs to be necessary flexibility, security within the supply chain network. Nowadays, resilience
has become a crucial topic. Now supply chain managers across the globe are quickly getting the
importance of maintaining resilience within the supply chain network at global level. In the
upcoming years, resilience will put a major impact on the mind set of supply chain managers so
that they will put necessary steps to maintain the resilience in an efficient manner. In this
context, the ways to measure the supply chain resilience are mentioned below:
Collaboration: The most important way to overcome from the disruption of supply
chain, unexpected changes and development is measuring collaboration. The higher
collaboration within a business process or network in the planning process minimizes the
disruptions within supply chain in effective manner. Colloboration is an effective function that
includes technology integration up & down the internal software environment like different
types of planning functions can easily work together (Novak, Wu and Dooley, 2021). Apart from
this, it comprises the integration of supply chain with suppliers and partners which makes them
enable to share the necessary information and maintain collaboration with other people outside
the organization. Further, it includes the tools which empower the process of collaborative
planning like digital twins and other sandbox planning environments.
Forecast error: Moving towards the quantitative measures, the first step is to be able to
measure the disruptions as well as changes. This means that with a spike in freight capacity or
larger demand , it will be possible to identify the necessary disruption in advance in order to take
necessary steps proactively. These steps will be helpful in minimizing the impact of sudden
events. Hence, it is imperative to figure out the resilience or measuring the accuracy of forecast
by making necessary comparison between the prediction and actual result. The smaller error
percentage show that the company is in better position to deal with the volatility in future.

Data velocity and availability: There is fundamental thread between most of the
elements of supply chain that is less susceptible. Data is required to make appropriate forecasts
but it might also be critical. In a resilient supply chain, there will be plenty amount of data and
the data will move throughout the organization to take quick decisions.
OEE: Simply, organizations that deal with unplanned idle time are not likely to set up for
effective resilience. If one cannot count the plants to produce huge ration, one will not be able to
rely on them in real time basis. Thus, there is requirement to make use of planning agility and
flexibility in an efficient manner (Dulia and et. al., 2021). For this purpose, one needs to measure
the OEE or effectiveness of overall equipments. This function is related with different things
such as quality, availability, performance and more. There is requirement to calcualate each
component as percentage and then make the multiplication of percentage to get OEE. This
respective formula can also be extended to transport activities. If the score is high, it shows the
need of resilience whereas lower score shows that there is requirement to do more work.
Theme 3: To identify and critically analyze the existing set of stress tests for the supply chains
developing a robust system for understanding the vulnerabilities within existing supply chain
According Paduano, 2021, Supply chain refers to the network of different individuals, resources
as well as organizations, technologies in the production and sale of a product. A supply chain
includes different activities from delivering material from supplier to manufacturer and
eventually delver the product to its end users. Supply chain vulnerability can be understood as
the disruption which arise through risks within the supply chain and risk caused from the
external environment to supply chain. In supply chain, there are several risks present which are
likely to affect the business operations of a company. Nowadays, supply chain management
includes ample of risks that directly affect the supply of goods and services. Modern supply
chains are vulnerable. There might be ample of issues in terms of delay in transportation, theft,
cyber attack, quality issues and more. Also, the shift in local, national as well as international
regulatory policy can affect the establishments of supply chain. Trade war is causing risk to
supply chain. Global trade led to imposition of import tariffs on different types of consumer
products. Apart from this, shortage of raw material is also a profound risk that has been faced by
the companies during supply chain management. Nowadays companies are following local as
well as regional manufacturing strategies. In addition to this, the production of several key raw

materials is still globalized (Wang and Zhang, 2021). Here, supply of certain key materials is
vulnerable is to widespread disruption due to high demand. At the end of 2018, plastic suppliers
have been warned against the shortage of supply of polymide materials. Apart from this, climate
change has also become a major risks that are being faced by the companies. It is stated that the
changing climate is likely to put wide impact on the global supply chain. At hotter atmosphere,
there can be ample of issues such as increase in drought condition, periods of intense rainfall,
damaging wildfires and more. Climate change will enhance the risks of flooding and extreme
water pattern in longer run. In present time, there are strict environment regulations in order to
tackle climate change, air quality and other types of environment pollution. Major impacts of
such policies are expected in China where strict rules were introduced to control the e emission
in significant manner.
To get a sense of organization’s supply chain network, there is requirement to undertake
supply chain assessment. The quick assessment is used to provide a scorecard which further
helps the organization to understand the level of resilience in supply chain.
Maintaining a balance between supply chain risk and cost, there is requirement to make
the company vigilant. Here, it is important to understand the risks that are associated with supply
chain. There are several categories which are highly susceptible in context of supply chain
disruption. A comprehensive supply chain stress test is likely to assess resilience in a holistically
way in terms of five factors such as corporate resilience, industry attractiveness, supply chain
exposure, customer exposure and more. This will make a company enable to perform a
comparison with competitive firms to structure suitable strategies for future growth. From the
starting of the COVID-19 pandemic, the supply chain was full with stress as most of goods used
to come from United states of America. Also, the pandemic disrupted infrastructure, geopolitical
position and more (ChrIStoPhEr, 2018).
The global pandemic caused serious harm to the flows of supply chain. To maintain the
flow of goods appropriately, there is requirement to undertake stress test. It will reduce the
likelihood of harms caused by the disruptions in an efficient manner.

Theme 4: Analyze how stress testing supply chain tend to counteract critical vulnerabilities
According to Ivanov, (2021), during the pandemic time, the global supply chain has been
disrupted. In this situation, the vulnerability and risks of disruption has been enhanced. In this
situation, it is important to perform stress testing. It is analyzed that supply chain refers to the
network of different individuals, resources as well as organizations, technologies in the
production and sale of a product. A supply chain includes different activities from delivering
material from supplier to manufacturer and eventually delver the product to its end users. Supply
chain vulnerability can be understood as the disruption which arise through risks within the
supply chain and risk caused from the external environment to supply chain. Organizations are
able to identify the potential risk of supply chain network failure in order to take suitable actions
and set benchmark against resilience. Stress testing is one of the significant way to analyze the
potential risks associated with supply chain network. By conducting stress test, an organization
can easily undertake suitable steps to control the risks which might occur in the future period of
time. In order to maintain an appropriate balance between supply chain risk and cost, there is
requirement to make the company vigilant. Here, it is important to understand the risks that are
associated with supply chain (Tse and et.al., 2017). There are several categories which are highly
susceptible in context of supply chain disruption. A comprehensive supply chain stress test is
likely to assess resilience in a holistically way in terms of five factors such as corporate
resilience, industry attractiveness, supply chain exposure, customer exposure and more.
To minimize the potential risks, companies are likely to focus on suppliers by using
supply chain mapping tools in order to identify the lower tier suppliers out of the publicly
available information. Here, they ask to share the information to their own critical supplier or
encourage the suppliers to perform their own stress test in significant manner. In addition, the
stress test is useful in terms of reviling necessary vulnerabilities within the supply chain. With
this, the company can also identify necessary mitigation steps. This is the combination of various
medium, long as well as short term steps that are tailored to address the specific issues in
significant manner. By this way, the stress test is used significantly to deal with the potential
impact of supply chain vulnerabilities in significant manner (Why now is the time to stress test
your industrial supply chain, 2020). A resilient stress test provides an essential first step to assess
the risk and take suitable steps for further improvements.

The project might add significant information regarding the supply chain. It might have
been covered necessary detailed how to improve the supply chain practices within a company.
Further, it might add appropriate strategies to cope up with vulnerabilities and challenges of
supply chain management of organization. Further, it is analyzed that supply chain is an
important practice to maintain the continuity in production within the company. However, the
company has to face several challenges and vulnerabilities while managing the supply chain of
an entity.
Methodology and resources
Research Type:
In context of present work, primary research has been conducted to collect the necessary
amount of data. Here, the researcher will collect necessary information from various
respondents. Here, the information will be authentic and fair. This information will guide
researcher in making valuable inferences in future period of time.
Search strategy:
In present context, questionnaire strategy is taken into consideration where the detailed
and in-depth information will be gathered to complete the project work successfully. The
respective research strategy is useful in terms of developing detailed knowledge base on a
particular research topic.
Search terms:
To complete the research project, several necessary terms will be searched. These terms
are supply chain, vulnerabilities and challenges of supply chain, stress test and more.
Inclusion and exclusion criteria in research:
The inclusion criteria for present study is based on demographic and geographical
characteristics of target population. Here, individuals have been excluded on the basis of age,
location and other such factors.
Project plan and risk assessment:

Gantt Chart
Risk assessment:
To complete a project successfully, it is imperative to perform the risk assessment. In this
context, the investigator needs to assess the risk associated with project in timely manner. In
order to assess the risk related to current project, the below mentioned tools will be used:
Risk Matrix: It is a matrix that is based on two major factors such as likelihood of risk
occurrence and potential impact of that risk over the business functions. Basically, it is a tool that
used to visualize the probability and severity of potential risk in an efficient manner. In present
context, risk matrix will be prepared to evaluate the risk associated with the current project.]

Decision tree: It is highly used tool of risk assessment that is used to understand how to apply
the policies or choosing between different modes of actions. Basically, this is a useful tool to
help the project manager to ensure that project manager will get best outcome from the project.
Conclusion
Out of the above-mentioned information, it is summarized that supply chain plays an important
role in exchange of raw material and finish goods. However, there are ample of vulnerabilities
associated with the supply chain. It is found that business managers faced the issues in terms of
material scarcity, increase in freight charges and other issues while managing the supply chain.
Further, it is monitored that stress test is useful in terms of developing a robust supply chain
system in an efficient manner.
References
Books and journals
ChrIStoPhEr, M., 2018. Supply management chain risk 09. Leading Procurement Strategy:
Driving Value Through the Supply Chain, p.162.
Dulia and et. al., 2021. Admitting risks towards circular economy practices and strategies: An
empirical test from supply chain perspective. Journal of Cleaner Production, 317,
p.128420.
Ivanov, D., 2021. Introduction to supply chain resilience: Management, modelling, technology.
Springer Nature.
Luthra, S. and Mangla, S.K., 2018. Evaluating challenges to Industry 4.0 initiatives for supply
chain sustainability in emerging economies. Process Safety and Environmental
Protection, 117, pp.168-179.
Novak, D.C., Wu, Z. and Dooley, K.J., 2021. Whose resilience matters? Addressing issues of
scale in supply chain resilience. Journal of Business Logistics, 42(3), pp.323-335.

Pettit, T.J., Croxton, K.L. and Fiksel, J., 2019. The evolution of resilience in supply chain
management: a retrospective on ensuring supply chain resilience. Journal of Business
Logistics, 40(1), pp.56-65.
Queiroz, M.M. and Wamba, S.F., 2019. Blockchain adoption challenges in supply chain: An
empirical investigation of the main drivers in India and the USA. International Journal of
Information Management, 46, pp.70-82.
Tse and et.al., 2017, December. Blockchain application in food supply information security.
In 2017 IEEE international conference on industrial engineering and engineering
management (IEEM) (pp. 1357-1361). IEEE.
Wamba, S.F. and Queiroz, M.M., 2020. Blockchain in the operations and supply chain
management: Benefits, challenges and future research opportunities. International
Journal of Information Management, 52, p.102064.
Wang, R. and Zhang, H., 2021, April. Transportation Supply Chain Management Mode Based on
Economic Management Virtual System. In 2021 International Conference on Computer,
Blockchain and Financial Development (CBFD) (pp. 446-449). IEEE.
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