Amico Ambra, Verginer Luca, Casiraghi Giona, Vaccario Giacomo, Schweitzer Frank
Chair of Systems Design, ETH Zurich, Weinbergstrasse 56/58, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland.
Sci Adv. 2024 Jan 19;10(3):eadj1194. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adj1194. Epub 2024 Jan 17.
Supply chain disruptions may cause shortages of essential goods, affecting millions of individuals. We propose a perspective to address this problem via reroute flexibility. This is the ability to substitute and reroute products along existing pathways, hence without requiring the creation of new connections. To showcase the potential of this approach, we examine the US opioid distribution system. We reconstruct over 40 billion distribution routes and quantify the effectiveness of reroute flexibility in mitigating shortages. We demonstrate that flexibility (i) reduces the severity of shortages and (ii) delays the time until they become critical. Moreover, our findings reveal that while increased flexibility alleviates shortages, it comes at the cost of increased complexity: We demonstrate that reroute flexibility increases alternative path usage and slows down the distribution system. Our method enhances decision-makers' ability to manage the resilience of supply chains.
供应链中断可能导致必需品短缺，影响数百万人。我们提出了一种通过重新规划灵活性来解决这一问题的观点。这是指沿着现有路径替代和重新规划产品的能力，因此无需建立新的连接。为了展示这种方法的潜力，我们研究了美国阿片类药物分销系统。我们重建了超过400亿条分销路线，并量化了重新规划灵活性在缓解短缺方面的有效性。我们证明，灵活性（i）降低了短缺的严重程度，（ii）推迟了短缺变得严重的时间。此外，我们的研究结果表明，虽然灵活性的提高缓解了短缺，但它是以增加复杂性为代价的：我们证明，重新规划灵活性增加了替代路径的使用，并减缓了分销系统的速度。我们的方法提高了决策者管理供应链弹性的能力。
