Exploring ecosystem network analysis to balance resilience and performance in sustainable supply chain design

Abstract

Sustainable Supply Chain Design can be performed using optimization strategies for minimizing environmental impacts while maximizing profit. It is not clear how such strategies influence the resilience of a supply chain its ability to cope with disruptions without compromising its function. This research used the Ecosystem Network Analysis (ENA), a model from Ecological Economics, to evaluate the resilience during the design of a sugar beet supply chain. The Ɛ-constraint method was used to solve a multi-objective, mixed-integer linear programming model (MOMILP). Results showed that ENA results are compromised when the strategy of minimizing environmental impacts is used, due to the increased fragility of the configuration, compared with the configuration from the profit maximization strategy. Sensitivity analysis also revealed that, when the number of facilities is increased, ENA results improve while profit is decreased. ENA showed an interesting potential to support the pursuit of balance between resilience and performance, bringing insights during early design stages.