Study of the impact of disruption propagation in a supply chain

As supply chains become global and complex, it is harder to predict and manage disruptions caused by unpredictable situations. Companies never stop seeking ways to monitor the impact of disruptions on their operations to maintain their competitiveness in the global market. To fulfill this need, this FYP reports on efforts to model a complex supply chain and how the disruption at nodes is propagated downstream. The internal Bill of Materials (BOM) is incorporated into manufacturer nodes to make the analysis more realistic. The extent of disruption at a node is quantified by two new parameters: (i) “Percentage Cumulative Supply Reduction” (for suppliers and intermediate nodes) and (ii) “Percentage Cumulative Disruption” (for end consumers). The report goes on to discuss the disruption at a single node, and double and triple nodes. It is found that the i) the impact of disruption propagated to the end consumer is greatest when disruption happens at the node(s) nearest to the end customers. ii) the impact of disruption propagation to end consumers is highly independent of the number of nodes disrupted. The daily extent of disruption at each node in the supply chain can be monitored within the disruption period and the trend of the impact of disruption during the period can be determined.Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical Engineering