Resilience by teaming in supply network formation and re-configuration

In an increasingly interconnected world, physical, service, and digital supply networks are becoming progressively more complex, dynamic, and interdependent. Moreover, sustainability concerns push for higher efficiency in the use of resources, reducing protective redundancies and making supply networks more susceptible to disruptions. Supply network resilience is an emerging concept related to the inherent ability of a network to tolerate and overcome disruptions, a central capacity to achieve long term-sustainable operations. However, current understanding of the impact of network formation and re-configuration mechanisms on resilience is at its early stages. In this article, resilience by teaming (RBT) association decisions, inspired in the fault-tolerance by teaming principle from Collaborative Control Theory, are characterized and applied in network formation and re-configuration mechanisms. The impact of RBT on emerging supply network topology and resilience under targeted and random disruptions is measured and compared to scenarios were only traditional association rules are applied. Results show that the introduction of supply network agents using RBT association rules significantly (1) increases quality of service (QoS) with no significant cost increase in normal operation, (2) increases post-disruption QoS by 15-30% under random disruptions and 10% under targeted disruptions without cost increase vs. normal operation - when at least 20% of the agents use RBT association rules. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.