Understanding the Dynamic Behaviour of Three Echelon Retail Supply Chain Disruptions

It is often taken for granted that the right products will be available to buy in retail outlets 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. Challenges in achieving this continued on-shelf availability range from recession hit demand patterns to cost reduction driven strategies. Irish government initiatives to brand the country as a sustainable, reliable provider of food retail supply chains has resulted in increased importance on decision maker accuracy. The vulnerability of retail supply chain’s (RSC) to disruption is another catalyst in the complexity of the decision making process and a more robust understanding of disruption behavior is needed. The aim of this paper is to illustrate the advantages of integrating balanced scorecard system thinking to system dynamic modeling of an extended retail supply chain. With this approach, decision makers can gain a better understanding of disruptions within their own organization and the partnerswithin their extended RSC.