Supply Disruption and Reactive Strategies in an Assemble-to-Order Supply Chain With Time-Sensitive Demand

This paper addresses the comparison and selection decision of reactive strategies for supply disruption management. We consider an assemble-to-order supply chain with one manufacturer who employs a single-sourcing strategy for each kind of component. The manufacturer assembles products for customers using components purchased from the suppliers in a just-in-time environment. Demand for the products is time-sensitive. We propose and compare three pure reactive strategies and two dynamic reactive policies for managing supply disruption. In the pure reactive strategies, only one kind of strategy is adopted during the disruption. But strategies adopted in the dynamic pure reactive policies change with the passage of time during the disruption. In the dynamic mixed strategy with customer choices, the manufacturer can use both backup source to offer on-time delivery and compensation policy to compensate customers for waiting in each period during the disruption. We find that the backup sourcing strategy is preferred at the beginning of the supply disruption, while the compensation strategy is preferred as time elapses. The dynamic pure strategy is superior to any other pure reactive strategies. The dynamic mixed strategy with customer choices is superior to the pure backup sourcing strategy. The backup cost and customer sensitivity are two determining factors in the manufacturer's choice of the reactive strategies.