Development of a decision support system for assessing the supply chain risk mitigation strategies: an application in Indian petroleum supply chain

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a decision support system (DSS) to assist supply chain (SC) risk managers to select a suitablerisk management(RM) strategy and expedite the implementation of corresponding RM enablers. The relationship between RM strategies and RM enablers is explored by identifying the underlying factors between them, which is further used to build the DSS. Design/methodology/approach The DSS is built by integrating heterogeneous techniques. Asystematic reviewapproach is employed to explore bothproactiveandreactiveRM enablers, and they are further mapped to various RM strategies by using correspondence analysis(CA). Anin-depth interviewis conducted to develop the rules for constructing the decision system. A rule-basedfuzzy inference system(FIS) is utilized to counteract the uncertainty involved in the decision variables. The efficacy of the proposed DSS is demonstrated by considering two conjectural scenarios in the case of Indian petroleum SC (IPSC). Findings The results reveal three primary underlying factors between the risk mitigation strategies viz. SC managers'preparednessto face risk, organization'sresource capabilityto deal with risk and thesophistication of the implementationof the RM enablers; with explained variances of 37%, 29% and 22%, respectively.Risk avoidancestrategy comprises of RM enablers such assupplier evaluation, technology adaption, information security,etc. Whereas, therisk-sharingstrategy includesrevenue sharing, insurance, collaboration, public-private-partnership, etc.as essential RM enablers. The DSS recommendsrisk-mitigationandrisk-sharingas effective RM strategies for the IPSC under the considered scenarios. Research limitations/implications This paper develops a decision support framework for recommending an effective risk mitigation strategy and outranking the corresponding enablers. The study explicitly focuses on the risk mitigation step of the supply chain risk management (SCRM) process. Pre- and post-risk mitigation steps of the SCRM process, such as risk assessment and risk monitoring are beyond the scope of this research. Originality/value The operational procedure of the proposed DSS is explained by considering a real-life case of petroleum SC in the Indian scenario. The unique contributions of this study are presented astheoretical implicationsandmanagerial propositionsin the context of a developing country.

Automated summary

This study aims to develop a DSS to assist SC risk managers in selecting appropriate RM strategies, revealing three primary underlying factors between the risk mitigation strategies, namely SC managers' preparedness, organization's resource capability, and the sophistication of RM enablers' implementation. The research demonstrates the efficacy of using the DSS with two conjectural scenarios for the Indian petroleum SC, recommending effective RM strategies such as risk mitigation and risk sharing.