A graph theoretic approach to modelling supply chain resilience for Indian automobile industry

Purpose The study quantifies the impact of resilience enablers on various business outcomes affected during a supply chain (SC) disruption faced by the Indian automobile industry. This impact is captured using the resilience index that helps in benchmarking resilience across SCs. Design/methodology/approach Graph theoretic and matrix approach (GTMA) is utilised in the study for obtaining the interactions and the resilience index. GTMA comprises three steps, namely, digraph formulation, adjacency matrix development and permanent function calculation. The diagraph helps in obtaining the interaction between the enablers, whereas the permanent function helps provide the single index value to the resilience capability of SCs. Findings The GTMA results in digraphs for the business outcomes depicting the interactions among the enablers for each business outcome. These interactions were quantified into adjacency matrix and permanent functions are calculated along with the theoretical best and worst values. The current value of each of the business outcomes and the SC resilience index is less for the Indian automobile SC, which requires strengthening the interactions among the enablers in the SC. Originality/value The research methods and the value of the resilience index are beneficial for managers and academicians alike. The quantification method can be utilised in other industry and country contexts to analyse the resilience of their SCs. Furthermore, these values may act as a benchmarking tool to compare the resilience value for different industries and also within the same industries. Based on the comparisons, managers can invest more in incorporating enablers in their SCs or they can improve upon the interactions among the enablers for a business outcome to improve overall resilience.