Detecting disturbances in supply chains: the case of capacity constraints

Purpose – The ability to detect disturbances quickly as they arise in a supply chain helps to manage them efficiently and effectively. This paper is aimed at demonstrating the feasibility of automatically, and therefore quickly detecting a specific disturbance, which is constrained capacity at a supply chain echelon.
Design/Methodology/approach – Different supply chain echelons of a simulated four echelon supply chain were individually capacity constrained to assess their impacts on the profiles of system variables, and to develop a signature that related the profiles to the echelon location of the capacity constraint. A review of disturbance detection techniques across various domains formed the basis for considering the signature based technique.
Findings – The signature for detecting a capacity constrained echelon was found to be based on cluster profiles of shipping and net inventory variables for that echelon as well as other echelons in a supply chain, where the variables are represented as spectra.
Originality/value– Detection of disturbances in a supply chain including that of constrained capacity at an echelon has seen limited research where this study makes a contribution.

This is the accepted version of the manuscript "Detecting disturbances in supply chains: the case of capacity constraints", forthcoming/published in the journal "International Journal of Logistics Management" available via the journal site at: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-12-2015-0223.
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