Using the Analytical Network Process to Select the Best Strategy for Reducing Risks in a Supply Chain

Abstract

This paper considers four types of the most prominent risks in the supply chain. Their subcriteria and relations between them and within the network are also considered. In a supply chain, risks are mostly created by fluctuations. The aim of this study is to adopt a strategy for eliminating or reducing risks in a supply chain network. Having various solutions helps the supply chain to be resilient. Therefore, five alternatives are considered, namely, total quality management (TQM), leanness, alignment, adaptability, and agility. This paper develops a new network of supply chain risks by considering the interactions between risks. Perhaps, the network elements have interacted with some or all of the factors (clusters) or subfactors. We constitute supply chain risks in the analytic network process (ANP), which attracted less attention in the previous studies. Most of the studies about making a decision in supply chains have been applied in analytic hierarchy process (AHP) network. The present study considers the ANP as a well-known multicriteria decision making (MCDM) technique to choose the best alternative, because of the interdependency and feedbacks of different levels of the network. Finally, the ANP selects TQM as the best alternative among the considered ones.