Optimal trade-offs in decision-making for sustainability and resilience in manufacturing supply chains

Today's competitive supply chains can focus on achieving sustainability and resilience. In this research, we observe the contradictory principles underlying sustainability and resilience to analyze the trade-offs among them, considering the firm's capabilities. These trade-offs were examined and further explained using several organizational theories. We employ a methodology using grey target decision-making and trade-off implementation model to study the significant objective contradictions, while practicing sustainability and resilience for firms and their supply chains. The model has been practically implemented for three case electronics manufacturing companies. On interpreting the results of the case implementation, it can be realized that the case firms prefer to implement sustainable and resilience strategies with more or less equal priorities. Hence, it is evident from the results that whenever an objective contradiction occur, the case firms prefer to implement strategies to benefit both the objectives with slightly greater priority weighting assigned for that objective, which is more matching with their business motto. Considering a stakeholder theory perspective, organizations are recommended to understand the stakeholders' choices that can influence the focus on sustainability or the focus on resilience of firms or their supply chains. In practice, managers can employ the proposed decision-making and trade-off implementation model for identifying and prioritizing the contradictory attributes of sustainability and resilience.

Automated summary

The study finds that in the process of achieving sustainability and resilience, companies are more willing to balance the relationship between the two, and often prefer to prioritize combining the two for implementation. Additionally, utilizing the grey target decision-making and trade-off implementation model can help senior management better identify and prioritize the conflicting attributes between sustainability and resilience.