Case Study: Uncertainty, Disruption and Resilience

Severe Flooding in Bangkok and its Effects on Supply Chains

Brian Lawrence

• Publisher: Kogan Page
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780749477011
• eBook ISBN: 9780749477028
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

Uncertainty, Disruption and Resilience explores how companies implemented various plans of action to respond to the Bangkok floods in 2011. Aimed at students on supply chain management courses, this case study demonstrates how operations management can be more adequately prepared to deal with supply chain risks and can protect its operations, staff and resources by detailing how process continuity plans can step in and respond to disruptions to supply chain. Uncertainty, Disruption and Resilience illustrates how vulnerable global supply chains can be to catastrophic events, and how this affects global operations of companies across industries. Readers are also provided with a clear indication of how far reaching poor planned supply chains can be on overall operations and performance.Register for a Kogan Page account at check-out to access and download your PDF after purchasing. You'll also have an opportunity to sign up when receiving your purchase confirmation email.

CASE STUDY

SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

Uncertainty, disruption and resilience

Severe flooding in Bangkok and its effects on supply chains

Brian Lawrence

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

brian lawrence is Lecturer in the School of Management at the Assumption University in Bangkok, Thailand.

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Introduction

You are an experienced supply chain specialist, just recruited to management status by a Singapore firm which has bought a factory in an industrial estate in north Bangkok. The CEO, a Singaporean, paid a bargain price because the mega-floods of 2011 had closed this factory for a month. He wants you to research what happened, identify the risks and prepare a business continuity plan so as not to be caught in a similar situation.

You discover the following abbreviated report based on research by a previous employee who was studying for a master’s degree in supply chain management.

This research report explores the impact of a calamity to businesses in Thailand. Foreign firms operate alongside local firms (often foreign–local partnerships), whose supply chains are within Thailand but also cross boundaries. In 2011 there was disastrous flooding in industrial sites in north Bangkok, due to monsoon rainfall accumulating as the river flowed south, and through the capital, to the sea. The government flood control centre was flooded, and moved to the old airport, which also became flooded. Overflow from the swollen river was allowed to flood the northern suburbs and industrial sites so that the central commercial district could be saved. Many parts of Bangkok are below sea level and sinking, drained by a network of canals feeding into the river.

Research report

Introduction

Thailand is an attractive factory location for foreign investors, and several industries use it as their production hub for the region. This paper presents empirical data on how some firms dealt with Thailand’s worst flooding in 70 years, and their attempts at resilience.

Literature review

Risk is the probability of experiencing a less than desirable event that affects one or more parties within a supply chain (Schlegel and Trent, 2012). Globalization is a key driver of complex supply chains. Unexpected events disrupt these trading webs. Failure to deliver to the customer is an uncertainty, whose causes include irregular weather conditions (Ho et al, 2005).

Resilience is the ability to recover from disruptions of any type (Schlegel and Trent, 2012).

To manage supply chain vulnerability, firms must plan for resilience and continuity, yet studies show that many organizations have not done this (Christopher and Peck, 2004).

Sheffi (2007) stated ...

Table of contents

• Uncertainty, disruption and resilience