Entropic measure of supply chain vulnerability

摘要

This paper proposes a model to assess the vulnerability of supply chain networks to disturbances, based upon topography and interconnectedness of various resources in the networks. First, in this paper the vulnerability of a supply chain system is defined based on expected amount of information that is required to describe the state of supply chain networks in terms of topology and interrelationship among resources. Then, the information on the topology and interrelationship is used to form a matrix, referred to as interaction matrix. Next, dynamics of the interrelationship under disturbances is formulated using the interaction matrix. Finally, the model of the dynamics of the interrelationship analyses the stability of the given network and measures the vulnerability based on information entropy. The proposed model in this paper identifies a supply chain network that has evenly distributed interrelationship among various resources as being more vulnerable, because in this case more information is required to identify the location of the disruptions in the network. The insight on the vulnerability and stability obtained by the proposed model supports design of the resilient supply chain systems to disturbances. The proposed model can also be used for the improved preparedness of the supply chain systems to disturbances.