Resilience of Finnish manufacturing supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic
Turja, Heikki (2021)
2021
Tuotantotalouden DI-ohjelma - Master's Programme in Industrial Engineering and Management
Tekniikan ja luonnontieteiden tiedekunta - Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2021-02-11
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202102011839
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202102011839
Tiivistelmä
These days’ many supply chains, especially in manufacturing industry, are very global. Components and materials can be bought from tens or hundreds of different locations around the world. This has many benefits, perhaps the biggest one being better cost-effectiveness. It can, however, place the supply chain in a more vulnerable position, because disruptions on the other side of the world can risk the supply of those needed materials and components. The COVID-19 pandemic is one good example of a global disruption that put supply chains under pressure. The effects of COVID-19 on Finnish manufacturing supply chains are the focus of this thesis.
Supply chain resilience means the adaptive capability of a supply chain to prepare for and respond to disruptions, and to make a timely and cost-effective recovery from it. In this thesis, the goal is to find out what are the building components of supply chain resilience, and how it could be improved. This question was answered in systematic literature review, and 16 elements of resilience were found. These elements are categorised in three groups in this thesis, and their interactions and effects on one another were examined. Furthermore, methods to improve each individual element were investigated.
Another goal of this thesis was to find out what is the state of supply chain resilience in Finnish manufacturing industry, and what was the role of the resilience during the pandemic, and what actions and reactions the pandemic caused in firms. The empirical part of the thesis is focused more on answering these questions. Four Finnish firms were interviewed as part of this thesis. The interviews were analyzed, and with the help of the constructed framework, the components of resilience in each firm were evaluated and rated. The ratings are used as an analysis tool to help in making conclusions.
The most important results in the theoretical chapter of this thesis are finding the structure of resilience, its building elements, and their interactions between each other. The findings also suggest that the most important elements of resilience are collaboration, flexibility, and agility. In the empirical part, the findings also support the constructed framework of resilience and the interaction between its elements. Another finding from the interviews was that in the interviewed Finnish firms, the reaction to the pandemic was mainly increasing preparedness, increasing emergency stocks for materials and components, and moving to closer and more frequent communication with business partners. The findings in this thesis also suggest that the industry of a firm might have a big impact on the level of its supply chain resilience, but the validity of this finding is relatively low with this sample size. In the end of the thesis, each of the interviewed firms are given some targeted guidelines on how their supply chain resilience could be improved, and these guidelines should be viable also for other firms in similar situation. Furthermore, some general methods for typically efficient ways for improving supply chain resilience are given.
Supply chain resilience means the adaptive capability of a supply chain to prepare for and respond to disruptions, and to make a timely and cost-effective recovery from it. In this thesis, the goal is to find out what are the building components of supply chain resilience, and how it could be improved. This question was answered in systematic literature review, and 16 elements of resilience were found. These elements are categorised in three groups in this thesis, and their interactions and effects on one another were examined. Furthermore, methods to improve each individual element were investigated.
Another goal of this thesis was to find out what is the state of supply chain resilience in Finnish manufacturing industry, and what was the role of the resilience during the pandemic, and what actions and reactions the pandemic caused in firms. The empirical part of the thesis is focused more on answering these questions. Four Finnish firms were interviewed as part of this thesis. The interviews were analyzed, and with the help of the constructed framework, the components of resilience in each firm were evaluated and rated. The ratings are used as an analysis tool to help in making conclusions.
The most important results in the theoretical chapter of this thesis are finding the structure of resilience, its building elements, and their interactions between each other. The findings also suggest that the most important elements of resilience are collaboration, flexibility, and agility. In the empirical part, the findings also support the constructed framework of resilience and the interaction between its elements. Another finding from the interviews was that in the interviewed Finnish firms, the reaction to the pandemic was mainly increasing preparedness, increasing emergency stocks for materials and components, and moving to closer and more frequent communication with business partners. The findings in this thesis also suggest that the industry of a firm might have a big impact on the level of its supply chain resilience, but the validity of this finding is relatively low with this sample size. In the end of the thesis, each of the interviewed firms are given some targeted guidelines on how their supply chain resilience could be improved, and these guidelines should be viable also for other firms in similar situation. Furthermore, some general methods for typically efficient ways for improving supply chain resilience are given.