Managing Risk and Resilience in Supply Chain & 3PL: Conceptual Developments and Proposed Frameworks

Abstract

In today's uncertain and turbulent markets, supply chain risk has become an issue of concern for business communities. Managing risk in a supply chain requires resilience – the ability to recover from or adjust easily to change or disruption. This research explores current practices in supply chain risk management (SCRM) by presenting an overview on sea of articles and describes and discusses various cases and models in practices and theory. A unique 5 dimensional framework for literature classification is constructed. Each of the dimensions in framework is further deeply explored in order to present literature overview in the best possible manner. With the help of this review, not only supply chain managers know how risks in different supply chains have been handled but academicians can also navigate through the sea of research articles. In order to fill the gap identified in aforementioned step, we provide general framework for risk management in Third party logistics (3PL) outsourcing processes. In this regard, we first provide a framework for establishing and managing 3PL relationships to understand the important elements and issues to consider in each step in order to enhance logistics outsourcing performance. Then, under the guidelines and principles of ISO 31000 Risk Management, we derive a framework for 3PL risk management that identifies various risks in different stages of logistic outsourcing process and proposes step by step approaches, tools and strategies for risk mitigation require in each phase of 3PL process. Finally, a general overview on a framework for relationship evaluation between 3PL users and providers is suggested with possible relationship attributes and tools.