Identification of factors responsible for successes or failures in the supply chain based on real-world case studies

The decision of firms from industrialized nations to outsource part or all of their supply chain activities to offshore countries, like in China, carries with it two major issues. The first is related to the costs and benefits of outsourcing and the second to risks and problems that may arise in-between the supply chain participants. A supply chain vulnerability analysis is currently performed under the "Speed to Market" project. The ultimate output of the project will be a software model capable of improving the ability of companies to ship intermediate or finished products to and from China. The purpose of my research is to identify the factors that are mostly responsible for the strength or volatility of the supply chain of a firm and come to conclusions about the questions that a firm has to answer before taking the decision to outsource. Such questions usually arise throughout the supply chain and are related to suppliers, inventories, demand forecasting and intellectual property issues.