Adoption of Sustainable Supply Chain Management using System Dynamics for performance improvement in the construction industry

Abstract

Construction sector has a crucial role in the economy of a country. Construction industry is very diverse and unorganized in nature. Unlike manufacturing and production industry, the construction industry faces difficulty because of uniqueness of every construction project. The construction sector is highly fragmented with multiple stakeholders working at various interfaces. There is a need for integration among stakeholders in the supply chain on construction projects that would help greatly in reducing cost and time overruns. Supply chain comprises of all those entities and processes which are involved in accomplishing a customer order. More stakeholders are involved in management of resources, information, and processes. Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) involves managing of materials, information, cash flows, cooperation among companies along the supply chain incorporating goals of sustainable development. There is a need to adopt the principles and practices of SSCM. The adoption is not a straight forward process, creating complexity issues in terms of its adoption. System dynamics approach is used to simplify complexity in the adoption of sustainable SCM using feedback mechanism. System Dynamics (SD) is an approach that is used to address complexity in the adoption of sustainable SCM using feedback mechanism. This research aims to determine challenges in the adoption of SSCM and to address the related complexity using system dynamics approach utilizing modelling and simulation techniques. The adoption of SSCM would lead to improved performance of the construction sector in the developing countries. The research consists of the following phases; identification of challenges from literature using content analysis and questionnaire surveys to determine causality among variables that led to the development of causal loop diagram (CLD). The CLD was used to develop the system dynamics model. The research findings will help the practitioners to adopt sustainability principles in term of supply chain and will not only enhance productivity and performance, but will also help in minimization of delays, promote long term relations, reduce communication gaps and projects complexities