A study on the interactions between supply chain risk management criteria using fuzzy DEMATEL method

Supply chain risk management is a rapidly emerging area boosted both by the prevalent external conditions of uncertainty and increased push for an efficient chain. This combined impact on the chain has rendered it with many weak points and these are considered as potential sources for disruptions. Supply chain management, faced with these disruption risks, requires specific and adequate responses in the form of new techniques, attitudes and sustainable strategies for management of risks. But the problem which arises is that given limited resources at disposal which of these disruption risks should be handled first. This situation becomes more complex due to the interactions between various criteria of disruption risks. In this paper, the interactions between supply chain risk management criteria is studied using fuzzy DEMATEL method. The method allows linguistic variables to deal with the subjective assessments and uses a fuzzy aggregation method for grouping the opinions of different experts. Fuzzifying the approach enables us to deal with subjective variables at ease. A numerical illustration from a real life industry case is presented for validating the proposed model. The result provides greater managerial insights as to which of the factors are to be given priority for supply chain risk mitigation.