Supply chain disruption indicators: Vulnerability and resilience in the garment industry in Vietnam

Abstract

This study contributes to identifying supply chain disruption indicators and resilience strategies, with the aim of enhancing issues related to disruption in the garment industry. Supply chain disruption influences a series of problems, including transportation delays, delivery times slow down and cost increases, etc. Additionally, resilience strategies mitigate and enable a supply chain to respond to disruption while recovering or improving so that risks are reduced, and operations are more efficient. However, previous studies have failed to identify supply chain disruption indicators, construct a hierarchical framework with causal interrelationships among the attributes, and develop resilience strategies to handle disruption situations, especially in the garment industry. This study proposes the creation of 6 aspects and 18 criteria of supply chain disruption and resilience strategy attributes via the fuzzy Delphi method and fuzzy decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory method. The findings show that the causal group consists of supply risk, flexible business strategies and collaborative strategies, whereas the effect group consists of human issues, transportation failure and preventive resilience strategies. In practice, managers should focus on resilience strategies such as backup suppliers, risk and revenue sharing, risk management culture, partnership management, and cooperation with stakeholders to enhance supply chain disruption. This study contributes to synthesize indicators related to supply chain disruption and resilience strategies for adapting and responding to disturbances during disruptions with minimal impacts on performance and future sustainability in the garment industry.