Process modularity, supply chain responsiveness, and moderators: The Medecins Sans Frontieres response to the Covid-19 pandemic

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Saiah, Felicia; Vega, Diego; Vries, Harwin; Kembro, Joakim
• 署名单位: Hanken School of Economics; Erasmus University Rotterdam - Excl Erasmus MC; Erasmus University Rotterdam; Lund University
• 刊物名称: PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1059-1478
• DOI: 10.1111/poms.13696
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 1490-1511
• 关键词: COVID-19 pandemic; humanitarian supply chain; MODERATORS; process modularity; supply chain responsiveness

摘要

The unprecedented scale of the Covid-19 pandemic has been a challenge for health supply chains around the world. Many international humanitarian organizations have had to ensure the continuity of their already complex development programs, while addressing their supply chain disruptions linked to the pandemic. Process modularity has frequently been advocated as a strategy to mitigate such disruptions, although empirical evidence regarding its impact on supply chain responsiveness and what moderates this impact is scarce. This exploratory research uses supply chain data analysis, qualitative content analysis, interviews, and a three-round Delphi study to investigate how Doctors without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres; MSF) and its 151 missions employed process modularity during the Covid-19 pandemic. Our results show that despite severe disruptions, process modularity-based on a modular architecture, interfaces, and standards-has helped MSF maintain supply chain responsiveness. Specifically, it (1) enabled time-consuming, nonessential tasks to be skipped, (2) relieved internal and external bottlenecks, and (3) facilitated better allocation and prioritization. Our analyses also put forward eight moderators, structured in three dimensions (visibility, alignment, and resource orchestration), which can affect the impact of process modularity on supply chain responsiveness. We extend the literature on supply chain responsiveness and process modularity by presenting extensive empirical results suggesting that process modularity improves responsiveness in crisis situations, how it does so, and what moderates this impact. Our study thereby highlights the potential of this strategy and provides operationally relevant insights that could help organizations to implement or to review and redesign their process modularity.