Comparing supply chain risks for multiple product categories with cognitive mapping and analytic hierarchy process

The risk management framework includes the practice of keeping safety stocks and safety lead time buffers. However, in today's high-tech and highly globalized world where competition is so fierce and paramount that managing and mitigating the risk by creating a more resilient supply chain has become indispensable for any organization. Assessing and managing the supply chain risks become very important in this context and one such risk assessing tool is Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). AHP supports managers in identifying the risk indicators, assessing the impact of undesired events and the varied cause and effect relationships along the chain, and thus prioritizing the objectives of the supply chain, hence arriving at the selection of the best supplier from various alternatives. Thus, the objective of this paper is to identify and assess supply chain risk across multiple product categories using cognitive maps and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) methodology.