The effects of different supply chain integration strategies on disruption recovery : a system dynamics study on the cheese industry

Long and complex supply chains are vulnerable to disruptions. One way to solve this problem is to successfully manage supply chain integration (SCI). A system dynamics simulation is thus applied to study a cheese supply chain with three individual firms: a producer, a logistics service provider (LSP), and a retailer. Our purpose is to study the effects of SCI strategies with different dimensional focuses, i.e., information integration (Scenario 1), relational integration (Scenario 2), and operational integration (Scenario 3), on the recovery of three types of disruptions, i.e., a producer capacity disruption, an LSP capacity disruption, and a demand disruption. Tests of parameter scenarios are further applied to provide solutions for supply chains using different strategies. Our results indicate that Scenario 3 is the best practice, regardless of any type of disruption, while Scenario 1 usually achieves the worst performance. This is consistent with an evolutionary perspective of supply chain integration: information integration gives firms a competitive advantage as the first step. Working as partners to share the most appropriate information leads to greater benefits. We extend this perspective by showing that further elimination of information delay helps the supply chain achieve the best performance.