Abstract:
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The Ecosilient Index, originally proposed by the authors Susana G. Azevedo, Kannan
Govindan, Helena Carvalho and V. Cruz – Machado, is an integrated index that reflects
simultaneously the resilience and the greenness of automotive companies and their supply
chains. This index, based on a combination of supply chain management practices related to
green and resilient paradigms, is a useful tool that reduces a complex situation to a single
number, helping companies to understand their supply chain’s overall resilience and
greenness and providing them a clear baseline for measuring their progress and
improvement in both fields.
The main objective of the present Master’s thesis is to improve this Ecosilient Index, in order
to help automotive supply chains to better determine their overall resilient and green
behaviours. For the development of the mentioned objective, it is first necessary to conduct a
comprehensive review of the literature on resilient and green supply chains, in order to draw
a global picture of both of them: broad definition, historical evolution and analysis of the
resilient and green practices that are currently being implemented. Then, an overview of the
automotive sector and a study of the present trends of the sector regarding resilience and
greenness are provided, as the Ecosilient Index is focused on the automotive industry.
Thanks to all the information compiled, some suggestions aimed at improving the current
Ecosilient Index are proposed. First of all, a total of four supplementary practices have been
suggested to be added in the combination of green and resilient supply chain management
practices used in the original Ecosilient Index. Second, the relationships between both
paradigms, resilient and green, have been examined. Last, but not least, some modifications
have been applied in the construction of the Ecosilient Index.
Finally, future research is needed as the improved Ecosilient Index is still at a theoretical
level and has not been applied in real automotive supply chains. Therefore, it would be
advisable to put into practice the two Ecosilient Indexes, the original and the new one, in
order to compare them and validate the improvement suggestions proposed in the present
Master’s thesis. |