Supply Chain Risk Assessment of SriLankan Apparel Manufacturing Organisations

Abstract

Supply Chain (SC) is a process, which passes variety of materials and large amount of information among its several stages. In viewing of modern business environment, SC risks have a noteworthy impact on the continued operations of any business. Despite the risks and uncertainties, the existence of a business seeks to achieve profits and therefore managing those risks has become a key requirement for that. Even though giving prior attention to the risks associated with SC is very important for an apparel manufacturing organisation, the research regarding this concept has received less attention in global context as well as in the Sri Lankan context. Therefore, this paper aims to conduct a Risk Assessment (RA) and investigate the most critical SC risks in Sri Lankan Apparel manufacturing organisations. This study was approached through a multiple case study research method by carrying out five case studies within the apparel industry. The required data was collected through semi- structured interviews and the data analysis was carried out using content analysis together with risk matrix. A comprehensive literature review identified forty SC risk factors of which the level of criticality was measured through case studies. As the findings revealed, the most critical risk factors faced by Sri Lankan Apparel manufacturing organisations are quality issues, maintenance failures, forecasting errors, technological issues, inadequate labour force, performance issues in labour and machinery, health and safety issues of employees, system breakdowns, communication issues, information mismatch, oil crisis, spread of diseases and delivery delays. These supply chain risks should be identified and handled properly in order to enhance supply chain risk management and thus, to improve the business processes in apparel manufacturing organisation without any interruption.