Assessing Effects of Supplier Relationship Management Strategies on Supply Chain Resiliency, Efficiency, and Sustainability Performance Trade-Offs

A major difficulty presented in modern supply chain management is the need to balance performance trade-offs such as those between operational efficiency, sustainability, and risk exposure. Of particular concern is the increasing cost and occurrence of low-likelihood, high-impact disruptions. To increase supply chain resilience, managers increasingly rely on effective Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) and supplier segmentation which identifies key suppliers on which to focus management efforts. By incorporating quantitative modeling data regarding the impact of major disruptions into the segmentation process, managers will be able to better-identify the most vulnerable areas of the supply chain. The objective of this research is to increase supply chain resilience by improving the process of supplier segmentation. Agent-based simulation (ABS) is proposed as an appropriate method because of its ability to account for autonomous behavior by supply chain entities. Expected research outcomes include an improved approach to supply chain risk management and SRM.