Supply Chain Resilience and COVID-19

MSCI 281 Supply Chain Management 2020-21Coursework AssignmentSupply Chain Resilience and COVID-19Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain resilience has become a more important concern for businesses, public-sector and third-sector organisations. Consultancy firms have been offering advice on resilience: for example, see links to reports from McKinsey, Accenture, and Gartner. Supply chain resilience has been a topic researched by academic supply chain researchers for over ten years, and there is now a body of work in this area. In this assignment, I would like you to take some of the key ideas and insights from this academic literature and use them to analyse examples of supply chain responses to disruption and change resulting from COVID-19.More specifically, I would like you to write an assignment addressing the following points:(a) Write a review of the key concepts and arguments concerning supply chain resilience. You should base this on reading selected journal papers in the supply chain, operations management and related literature. This should include, but not be limited to: definition(s) of supply chain resilience, why it is needed, how it is supposed to be achieved, and its effects on performance. Bear in mind the quality of the sources you use (i.e., they should be peer-reviewed journals), and aim to draw on about 10 journal papers. (b) Using web-based resources and the business press, identify two examples of supply chains responding to significant changes caused by COVID-19. These could be increases or decreases in demand, major changes in distribution channels, or disruptions to the upstream supply of inputs, among others. (It is possible that several of these could be present simultaneously in one case.) Describe the examples, providing as much detail as possible on the composition and structure of the supply chain, how COVID-19 has caused changes or disruptions, how the organisations involved have responded (if they have), and how effective their responses have been. Please provide as much specific detail as you can: quantify the changes as far as possible, identify specific products, services or other inputs, and provide timings and locations of key events. Although you may concentrate on one organisation in each example, please include information about the supply chain beyond this organisation and, where appropriate, the inter-organisational aspects of the situation.(c) Use key concepts and insights from your literature review in Part (a) to analyse the cases in Part (b). You should consider how these concepts can be used to describe and explain the examples. It may be useful to compare the two cases. You should also discuss whether the existing conceptualisations of supply chain resilience in the literature are sufficient for the exceptional characteristics of the disruptions cause by COVID-19. I am interested in your analysis of the cases. As such, you should not reproduce or summarise existing discussions of them by journalists, consultants, or academics, but write your own analysis. You may also want to relate your discussion to key SCM topics covered on the module such as inventory, inter-organisational relationships, the bullwhip effect, and so on.General pointsThe word limit is 3000 words, excluding references and Appendices. I strongly encourage the use of diagrams and Tables; all Figures and Tables must have numbers and titles, and you should refer to them explicitly in your text. Appendices should be used only for material that is not required by the reader to follow the argument of your essay (i.e., for optional, background material). Please use subheadings clearly to indicate the structure of your work. Use a consistent method of referencing, preferably the Harvard system. You are referred to the Lancaster University Library pages regarding referencing and plagiarism.https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/library/how-to/reference/All work submitted will be analysed by plagiarism detection software. Please don’t plagiarise: it is a serious academic offence.Please submit the work electronically via Moodle. The submission date is 25th January 20201. The exact time will be evident from the Moodle submission tool. Please do not put your name on your work or in the filename, only your student ID number.Please discuss the assignment with me if you require clarification.Martin Spring