https://doi.org/10.24928/2023/0181

Slack: What Is Lacking on Supply Chain Resilience Strategies?

Fernando Pereira¹, Marcus Fireman² & Bernardo Etges³

¹M.Sc. Student, Postgraduate Program: Operations Management and Sutainability, Fundação Getúlio Vargas FGV, São Paulo, Brazil. Lean Consultant at Climb Consulting Group, [email protected], https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1584-2249
²PhD Student, Postgraduate Program in Civil Eng.: Construction and Infrastructure, UFRGS, Porto Alegre 90035-190, Brazil, [email protected], orcid.org/0000-0001-5843-4715
³PhD Candidate, M.Sc. Eng., Founding-Partner at Climb Consulting Group, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil, [email protected], https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3037-5597

Abstract

In complex systems, supply chains are more exposed to variability and uncertainties that lead companies to suffer negative effects on their performance and may even collapse. The civil construction sector is seen as a complex socio-technical system, therefore it must consider strategies that deal with these disturbances. Slack and resilience in the supply chain are topics that have already been discussed in several sectors of the industry and deal with these variables, however the literature is recent for the civil construction sector. It is understood that Slack can provide an improvement in the effect of supply chain resilience, however, there is no theoretical discussion that points out similarities and complementarities between slack and the concept of resilience in the supply chain to shed light on the uses and limitations of the practices. The study in question makes a theoretical discussion based on a literature review about these systems, compares their practices and strategies, similarities and complementarities and finally proposes future research. Findings of this study shows that one of the strategies like flexibility is more advanced on strategic issues such as pricing and flexible contracts in supply chain resilience theory than on slack theory. Other contributions are discussed for collaboration, social capital, margin of manoeuvre, agility and redundancy strategies.

Keywords

Supply chain resilience, slack, strategies.

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Reference

Pereira, F. , Fireman, M. & Etges, B. 2023. Slack: What Is Lacking on Supply Chain Resilience Strategies?, Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC31) , 1686-1697. doi.org/10.24928/2023/0181

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