Increasing security and efficiency in supply chains: a five-step approach

The actions that companies implement to protect business continuity from threats like theft, smuggling and terrorism can reduce supply chain (SC) efficiency. This paper presents an approach to support managers in choosing activities, methods and technologies to increase SC security without reducing its efficiency. It consists of the following steps: 1) identification and assessment of threats along the SC; 2) identification of weak points; 3) identification, development and provision of suitable target processes that increase security without negatively affecting efficiency; 4) evaluation of expected impacts of the identified target processes on SC security and efficiency; 5) implementation and monitoring of performance of the identified target processes. To support the accomplishment of step three, an in-depth literature review was performed to identify a list of possible actions. This was tested in a workshop with SC stakeholders and experts. Suitable actions to solve problems connected with human behaviour and intervention have been identified.