Liu, J; Chan, T K; Ndukwe, C V and Liang, Y (2021) Building resilient supply chains for construction small and medium sized enterprises. In: Scott, L and Neilson, C J (eds.) Proceedings of 37th Annual ARCOM Conference, 6-7 September 2021, Online Event, UK.
Abstract
Along with global economic growth and the prevalence of global trade, uncertain and turbulent markets can lead to construction supply chain vulnerabilities and disruptions. Within this environment, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the construction industry are booming, despite being considered one of the most vulnerable sectors in the economy. Therefore, construction SMEs need to implement fundamental changes and adopt agile methods of coping with supply chain uncertainties to withstand the effects of unpredicted events, such as the COVID-19 crisis. In Australia, SMEs account for more than 99% of all Australian enterprises and deliver up to 60% of the total value of the construction industry. This research aims to identify resilience factors to optimize the supply chains of the SMEs in construction industry. Through a systematic review of literature, this research firstly identifies the resilience factors under the general supply chain environment. Subsequently, it systematically identifies the resilience factors for construction supply chains and SMEs supply chains with an objective to characterise the similarities and difference in these factors. Finally, this research demonstrates and applied these resilience factors in a small Australian building company. This research will contribute to the body of literature of resilient supply chains and to qualitative and quantitative research into building of resilient supply chains in the construction sector SMEs.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | construction supply chain; globalization; resilience factors; resilient supply chain; SMEs. |
| Index terms: | Australia, small and medium sized enterprise, quantitative research, markets, construction sector, COVID-19, construction industry, systematic literature review, vulnerability, economic growth, coping, globalization, construction supply chain |
| Subjects: | industry analysis, economic analysis, behavioral psychology, Geography, research evaluation and metrics, environmental hazards, construction logistics, data analysis and analytics, health risk and incident analysis, economic factors, economic development, organization |
| Topics: | Supply Chain Management, Business Strategy, Geographical Context, International Construction, Sustainability, Health and Safety, Research Practice |
| Descriptive scope: | 5 PCTEA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here