As we have been able to observe in recent years, a change in context causes uses to evolve and new products and new technologies to emerge… New market needs raise questions in the industrial world and highlight the need to reconfigure the supply chain.
The COVID 19 crisis, the war in Ukraine, the shortage of semiconductors… the current situation has put a strain on supply chain performance management. Faced with these findings, the time is undoubtedly right to rethink supply chain management models. In response to this problem, improvement strategies provide a solution to guarantee the resilience of the supply chain and the response to customer needs regardless of the vagaries of the market.
The reconfiguration of supply chains: a new solution to manage market contingencies
The implementation of a reconfigurable supply chain presents itself as a relevant solution to meet market demands. This new trend means “the ability of the supply chain to change its structure and functions to respond to market disruptions and changes »[1]. In other words, a supply chain capable of adapting its structure, through physical flows, warehouses or production lines, and its functions, for example its production capacity or its delivery times, to new needs.
This solution might present itself to manufacturers as a means of better managing the supply chain by relying on the six pillars of the concept of reconfigurability: modularity, integrability, convertibility, diagnosability, scalability and customization. As a priority, it seems important to determine the capacity of the supply chain to deal with unforeseen events. For decision makers, this approach allows them to assess the ability of their supply chains to reconfigure their structures and functions.
Assess the ability of the supply chain to cope with unforeseen events
Performance indicators play a key role in the search for improving reconfigurability since they provide accurate and real-time information. These indicators also make it possible to measure the evolution of the performance, in particular with the underlying conditions which change practically every day. Reconfiguration characteristics play a crucial role in assessing the ability of the supply chain to cope with the unexpected. Here are some ways to improve this ability:
- Modularity consists of designing a modular supply chain by grouping its activities under a set of independent modules in order to reduce lead times;
- Integrability aims to quickly and cost-effectively introduce new entities, such as tangible or intangible resources, activities, or even products, into the supply chain;
- Convertibility facilitates the conversion of its entities, such as a production line or a warehouse, to meet new customer needs;
- The diagnostician refers to the fact of diagnosing in order to quickly detect failures and thus guarantee the responsiveness of the chain;
- Scalability has the effect of quickly modifying its order processing flow and reducing lead time;
- Personalization has the action of personalizing its products and services in a very short response time and with a wide variety of features.
Measuring supply chain reconfigurability is a way for decision makers to assess the ability of their supply chains to cope with the unexpected and thereby improve their structures and functions. The proposed indicators present a significant advantage to improve the performance of their supply chain in the strategies of change and adaptation to new market requirements.
A pair of Slim Walls
[1] Slim Zidi thesis on the management of reconfigurable supply chains