Supply chain agility: analysing the enablers

Supply chain agility is important as it provides the capability to quickly adapt the changing market requirements. So every organisation is working towards transforming their supply chains into agile entities. But, it needs a proper understanding of variables that impact the agility of supply chains. Using Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM), this paper has developed a hierarchy of these variables. Further, Graph Theoretic Approach (GTA) is applied to quantify the most important variables as deduced from ISM model and to understand the interdependencies among them. The results show that not all the variables require the same focus, instead there is a set of variables known as driver variables which needs maximum attention. An agility improvement index is proposed based on these driver variables to compare various supply chains on agility improvement efforts. Integration of ISM and GTA is a unique effort in the area of supply chain management.