Cranfield University's Resilience Grand Challenge is developing a guide to Modern Supply Chain Resilience for Practitioners.

At a glance

  • Dates2022
  • SponsorResearch England
  • Funded£18,600
  • PartnersSchool of Management (SOM)
    School of Water, Energy and Environment (SWEE)

    11 academics from SOM and SWEE within Cranfield University
    SOM:  Nicky Yates, Richard Wilding, Abhijeet Ghadge, Soroosh Saghiri, Mike Sutliff and David Denyer
    SWEE:  Jim Harris, Paul Burgess, Da Huo, Daniel Evans and Simon Jude

Cranfield University's Resilience Grand Challenge includes a team of multidisciplinary academics who have been actively engaged in research and consultancy activities related to supply chain resilience for a number of years. This project offered an opportunity to bring this team together, building on the 2003 Department for Transport funded guide and thought leadership workbook "Creating Resilient Supply Chains: A Practical Guide" led by our Emeritus Professor Martin Christopher. The focus of the project was on developing an updated "Guide to Modern Supply Chain Resilience" to develop a research-based, but practitioner focussed guide to the challenges faced by modern supply chains and showcase how Cranfield-based research can inform and help to manage these challenges through a set of twelve case studies. We propose a novel framework for managing modern, resilient supply chains; encouraging companies to re-shape their supply chain strategy to focus on – resilience, flexibility & robustness and re-assess their supply chain operations to focus on design for robustness. Whilst highlighting the vital roles of technology, innovation, communication & people as underpinning enablers to achieve this.