Tag Archives: robustness

Taleb, Hamel, Holling…and I

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Revised on: 2020-12-23

Is my idea of how to differ robustness from flexibility from agility from resilience – hallmark of my research ideas – in any way related to the ideas of Nassim Taleb, Crawford Stanley Holling and Gary Hamel? Well, Sinan Si Alhir certainly thinks so, on a blog post that he wrote back in 2013, when he explored Taleb’s concept of Fragility and Antifragility. Interesting…, so where do I fit in?

Surprise surprise

Having had an online published presence for almost 20 years now it should not come as a surprise to me that every now and then I stumble across myself in the unlikeliest of places for the unlikeliest of reasons. That said, by now, based from the bits and pieces I have seen here and there, I really should no longer be so surprised that my idea of how to differ robustness from flexibility from agility from resilience resonates with quite a number of people, including Si Alhir, in his blog post on Antifragile, Flexibility, Robust, Resilience, Agility, and Fragile.

The champion of Creative Destruction

Nassim Taleb is certainly no stranger on this blog. After all, in 2009 I did review The Six Mistakes Executives Make in Risk Management, an article he co-authored in the Harvard Business Review, and that was based on his book on Black Swans from 2007.  And although I read the book, I never reviewed it, but I remember that liked his ideas. His latest book “Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder” makes creative destruction a major point.

The father of Resilience Theory

CS Holling does not have a blog post here; in hindsight I guess he should have, because he is often recognized as one of the if not THE founding father of resilience theory, and resilience has been one of the more frequent topics on husdal.com, even more so after I turned resilience practitioner after being a resilience researcher. That said, since Holling’s main domain lies within ecology I never thought of his resilience as something that I would be particularly interested in. That is why he is only mentioned as a side note in a blog post on transportation resilience.

The Iconoclast

Gary Hamel is another almost unknown on this blog. He shouldn’t be, because bGary Hamel is one of the world’s most influential and iconoclastic business thinkers. In my small world he is mentioned in a comment on my blog post about the HBR guide to Managing External Risk, and I also mentioned him in my review of Lisa Välikangas book on The Resilient Organization, as her co-author in the article on The Quest for Resilience.

The Fantastic Four

So, in his blog post on Antifragile, Flexibility, Robust, Resilience, Agility, and Fragile Si Alhir features me and my definitions alongside those of Taleb, Hamel and Holling, and I must say that I do feel somewhat like being part of the Fantastic Four (pun intended):

However, the most interesting part of Si Alhirs blog post is not the side by side comparison, but a figure that integrates these concepts into one, and that shows how Taleb’s Fragility and Antifragility is a continuum that encloses or surrounds the other concepts.

 

I like this figure. In a previous blog post I explored Terje Aven’s definitions of vulnerability and resilience, and the notion that you can be generally resilient, but not generally vulnerable, only specifically vulnerable to the specific impact of a specific event relating to a specific risk. That notion now makes much more sense to me when I see fragility below vulnerability. This makes it clear that fragile is a general trait, while vulnerable is a specific trait.

A new way forward?

Taleb’s idea of antifragility is very intruiging, especially if seen the way that Si Alhir manages to put it into one figure that makes it all easy to understand and apply. That reminds me of a paper I wrote 10 years ago, in the early stages of what unfortunately did not manifest into a PhD. Anyway, in that paper – being a qualitative not a qualitative researcher – I took a liking of Giordano Bruno, the 16th century Italian philosopher. Bruno advocated the use of conceptualising, that is to think in terms of images, and he said that to think was to speculate with images. For people to understand science,  according to Bruno, it ought to be rich in images and concepts, but poor in formulas.

I think that is exactly what Taleb is trying to do, and I look forward to reading his book on Antifragility, and to see how his ideas fit my own ideas. Si Alhir seems to think they do. I consider that a compliment.

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Robust, Resilient and Secure

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Revised on: 2015-11-13

Antagonistic threats against supply chains are a special and limited array of risks and uncertainties that are demarcated by three key words: deliberate (caused), illegal (by law) and hostile (negative impact). In this paper, following up on Daniel Ekwall’s PhD thesis, Dafang Zhang, Payam Dadkhah and Daniel Ekwall suggest a suitable model of how to handle the risks and achieve security in a systematic and scientific way, where robustness and resilience play a major role.

Revisiting an old friend

I came across Daniel Ekwall some seven years ago when I found his PhD thesis that combined theories from criminology with theories from logistics and supply chain management to examine cross-over points or antagonistic gateways between legal and illegal logistics. In his thesis, Ekwall contended that there are basically two types of threats to logistics, theft/sabotage and smuggling. The theft/sabotage problem is directly aimed towards the logistics activities, while smuggling abuses the logistics system for illegal purposes. This paper takes this issue a small step further.

Finding myself

I guess I should have paid closer attention to Ekwall’s research and writings, because then I would have discovered this paper earlier and then I would have seen that which I now  – if I may be a little presumptious here – can call my legacy within supply chain risk research, namely my illustration on the differences of robustness and resilience:

In a blog post some weeks ago I asked whether what I have been writing was actually making an impact, and I concluded that the above illustration was perhaps that which I was most “famous” for, and this paper certainly confirms that assumption.

Security in supply chains

Back to the article in review, what the authors attempt to do – and succeed at, I must say – is to take current concepts and models of supply chain risk management, and adding supply chain security, not as a separate concept, but as a part of overall supply chain (risk) mangement. While most of the reviewed literature and quoted figures they highlight was quite familiar to, one figure taken from one book was new to me. This clear separation of suply chain risk and supply chain vulnerability and how they link up with risk management and decision-making is much in line with my own way of thinking:

On second thought, dwelling on why tis figure hasn’t caught my attention before, I suddenly realised that I had indeed reviewed the book it was taken from: Supply Chain Risk Management – Vulerability and Resilience in Logistics by Donald Waters. Admittedly, the reviw was done in 2008. Looking back at the review I did  almost 8 years ago, I must have thought the book to be of too little academic value to me at that time.

Safety Net

Anyway, I’m sorry for digressing again, what the authors are investigating are what specific supply chain assets that are susceptible to antagonistic threats, and how supply chain security measures can apply robustness and resilience. They illustrate this with a focal model of Robustness and Resilience:

This model shows the relationship between strategies for robustness and strategies for resilience, as seen from a company perspective and from a security provider perspective.

In the company and transportation network perspective, every components of the supply chain should become robust and resilience. The robust strategy is to handle small risks ahead of the event, and manage regular fluctuations like some low impact with high likelihood accidents. Resilience strategy can help the companies adapt, improvise and overcome those disturbance and disruptions greater than the robust can handle. It helps the companies to survive after suffering from big risks and changes.

The right side of the model is further developed into what the authors call a “safety net” of services: site security, transportation security, emergency services, consultation services, and collaboration:

Site security is about protecting every node in the transferral of goods in the transportation network, e.g. warehouses, terminals, factories, and ports. Transportation security is about protecting the transportation as such, e.g. the vehicles en-roue and during parking, as well as the drivers. Emergency services provide a quick response in addition to security operations. Security providers can also act as professional consultants, and lastly, security providers are also likely to collaborate with other organisations to improve their own (and the others’) service level and the overall capability to thwart any security threats.

Conclusion and critique

Akward English sentences and lack of flow aside (see citation above), this article does have some good points. Supply chain security appears to be overlooked in supply chain risk management. However, supply chain security can add to the robustness and resileince of the overall supply chain, providing  a “safety net” of services that protects, secures and enhances the overall supply chain operation.

The company versus security provider model brings together both sides of the perspective in a way that does create a consistent groundwork for building robustness and resilience. The safety net model extends beyond the supply chain and identifies the assets that need to be protected and how they can be protected.

However, after finishing reading my first thought was that there should have been a conclusion after the authors’ chosen conclusion, because the article seems to stop abruptly, leaving loose ends that could have been wrapped up a bit more, at least from an academic perspective.

That said, for a logistics and transportation manager this paper is well worth reading.

Reference

Zhang, D., Dadkhah, P. Ekwall, D. (2011)  How robustness and resilience support security business against antagonistic threats in transport network. Journal of Transportation Security 3 (4) 201-219 DOI: 10.1007/s12198-011-0067-2

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Am I making an impact?

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Revised on: 2015-10-04

Is what I am doing worthwhile? Is anybody reading and using what I write? Am I contributing to a broader and/or better understanding of supply chain risk and (transport) vulnerability? After more than a decade of blogging and researching I think those are legitimate questions to ask. More than anything, am I making an impact…at all? For many of us researchers that is an important question, because, after all, we do hope that someone picks up our ideas.

Robustness and Flexibility 2004

One concept that I have found cited more recently is what started out 11 years ago in 2004 as a university course paper on flexibility and robustness as options to reduce risk and uncertainty. In hindsight, it is not a paper I am particularly proud of, but it was the starting point for an illustration that later became the core idea of much of my work.

Flexibility and Robustness

Admittedly, not the best illustration, but the idea was to show that robustness means enduring and withstanding changes in the environment without severe impact, while flexibility means reacting to and adapting to the same changes, while not deviating from the target.

Robustness, Flexibility and Resilience 2008

Some years later in 2008 I added resilience to the concept, thinking I now had the whole picture, and once and for all – or so I thought – defined what robustness, flexibility and resilience are about:

Robustness Flexibility Resilience

The idea here was to show that robust means staying on course, despite being buffeted from both/many/all sides.  Yes, there are impacts, but they do not severely hamper reaching the target. In this picture flexible means reacting to environmental circumstances and changing course or even the target without reducing performance. Resilient is coming back to where we were after suffering a blow or setback.

Risk Management in Logistics 2009

This clear distinction between these terms was apparently good enough to earn me a place in a Dutch book titled Risicomangement en Logistiek (Risk Management in Logistics):

Robustness-Flexibility-Resilience

The picture is slightly skewed, but is still the same as the original.

Robustness, Flexibility, Agility and Resilience 2009

Robust-Flexible-Agile-Resilient

Later, after gaining more insight in 2009, I added agility to the same concept, and I now had what I thought to be the best possible illustration of robustness, flexibility, agility and resilience, defining all four concepts in one:

Here I differentiated between flexibility and agility by saying that flexibility meant reacting to environmental changes in an expected and preplanned manner, while agility implied reacting in an unexpected and unplanned (creative) manner.

Robustness, Flexibility, Agility and Resilience 2010

That complete concept was published in 2010 in my book chapter on A Conceptual Framework for Risk and Vulnerability in Virtual Enterprise Networks, and included a lengthy discourse on the literature for all four terms:

The published Robust Flexible Agile Resilient

While I not stated it explicitly, the definitions  read like this

  • Robustness is the ability to endure foreseen and unforeseen changes in the environment without adapting.
  • Flexibility is the ability to react to foreseen and unforeseen changes in the environment in a pre-planned manner.
  • Agility is the ability to react to unforeseen changes in the environment in an unforeseen and unplanned manner.
  • Resilience is the ability the ability to survive foreseen and unforeseen changes in the environment that have a severe and enduring impact.

All four are linked, all four are important in risk management, but they all put different weight on what should be the focal point.

Dissemination

No longer a part of academia, I have little means of disseminating my ideas, but I am glad to see that my rather lengthy discourse on the difference between this terms in the book chapter has struck a cord with a number of recent publications on supply chain risk and resilience:

The two first are co-authored by Andreas Wieland, on of my Linkedin connections and perhaps the biggest proponent of my aforementioned concept so far.

What does the future hold?

I don’t know what will happen next. In any case, the answer to the initial question “Am I making an impact?” is, surprisingly, Yes.

Reference

Husdal, J. (2010) A Conceptual Framework for Risk and Vulnerability in Virtual Enterprise Networks. In: S Ponis (Ed.)(2010) Managing Risk in Virtual Enterprise Networks: Implementing Supply Chain Principles. Hershey: IGI.

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Robust, Rapid, Resilient

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Revised on: 2015-09-27

The resilience of infrastructure systems can be measured by two dimensions: robustness, the extent of system function that is maintained, and rapidity, the time required to return to full system operations and productivity. That is the theme in Fostering resilience to extreme events within infrastructure systems: Characterizing decision contexts for mitigation and adaptation, written by Tim McDaniels, Stephanie Chang, Joseph Mikawoz, Darren Cole, and Holly Longstaff. A very interesting paper, indeed, for more than one reason.

What influences the disruption profile?

In a previous post on transport network resilience by Mattson and Jenelius, I was struck by a figure they had taken from this paper. It was a disruption profile, used time and again by a number of researchers within resilience, vulnerability, reliability and related subjects.

In this particular paper the shape of the disruption profile is influenced by two variables: robustness and rapidity. Robustness, in turn, is influenced by mitigation, while adaptation influences rapidity. As a concept this makes sense.

More interesting than the above figure is the construct behind it, illustrated in the form of a flowchart, showing how the influence of mitigation and adaptation comes into play:

At the top of the figure is the socio-technical context. Here are the variables that affect the decisions as to how much pre-disaster mitigation that is required  (e.g. by law or based on prior experience), how much that is desired (e.g. risk acceptance) or how much that is economically viable (budgetary constraints).

Following the mitigation decision, at the next level, the system’s vulnerability is determined by another set of variables: the system’s technical resilience, and the organization’s organisational resilience and how they meet the next variable, which is a particular hazard.

Combined, technical and organisational resilience determine the immediate operational capacity following an event, depending on the hazard causing the event. That is the system’s robustness.

After the immediate operational capacity has been established, adaptation decisions must be made as to how to regain full operational recovery, the speed of which is a system’s rapidity in getting back to normal.

The evaluation of pre-disaster and post-disaster decisions and actions initiates a learning process that in turn leads to a new socio-technical context.

In essence, pre-disaster mitigation fosters robustness, and post-disaster adaptation fosters rapidity.

Conclusion

This paper clearly outlines a conceptual framework where resilience, a combination of both rapidity and robustness, is a result of ex-ante and ex-post decisions. Albeit resilience in common thinking more often than not is linked to how an organisation copes with an event ex-post, much of the groundwork for the coping process is laid ex-ante.

Reference

McDaniels, T., Chang, S., Cole, D., Mikawoz, J., Longstaff, H. (2008) Fostering resilience to extreme events within infrastructure systems: Characterizing decision contexts for mitigation and adaptation. Global Environmental Change 2 (18), 310–318

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In this particular paper

Adaptation versus Transformation

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Revised on: 2015-09-12

Many businesses believe themselves to be nested in a stable environment and are confounded when things suddenly change, and the world today no longer is the same world it was yesterday. Adapt or transform, that is the question, and in Adaptive Fit Versus Robust Transformation: How Organizations Respond to Environmental Change, written by Cynthia Lengnick-Hall and Tammy Beck in 2005, both options are explored.  While adaptation may work temporarily, transformation and building a resiliency capacity is what works best in the long run. What is it about resilience that is so important, and most importantly, why?

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Risks in virtual enterprise networks and supply chains

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Revised on: 2015-09-05

It is not unusual for suppliers in a supply chain to come together and act as a Virtual Enterprise Network (VEN) and today’s supply chains exhibit many VEN-like features. Is managing risks in Virtual Enterprise Networks different from managing risks in supply chains? With this in mind I submitted a paper to MITIP2009, the 11th International Conference on the Modern Information Technology in the Innovation Processes of the Industrial Enterprises, to be held in Bergamo, Italy, in October.

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Supply chain flexibility – a complete literature review?

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Revised on: 2015-09-11

Someone had to come up with this, it was just a matter of time, and it is no suprise that this article comes from India, one of the major providers of global outsourcing for many industries. In an article reviewing some 100 references,  Babu & More (2008) Perspectives, practices and future of supply chain flexibility, the focus is on anything supply chain flexibility, really anything that relates to supply chain flexibility. And honestly, I must say, they don’t leave much ground uncovered.

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Robustness, resilience, flexibility and agility

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Revised on: 2015-10-04

Several “buzzwords” have been linked to supply chain risk  management (SCRM) in various ways: robustness, flexibility, agility and resilience.  These concepts are often confused, and thus, warrant further explanation. They are distinctively different, and which strategy that works best would depend not only on the supply chain in question as a whole, but also which part of the supply chain that may be vulnerable. That is why it is useful to look at what sets one apart from the other.

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Assess the vulnerability of your production system

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Revised on: 2015-09-08

So far I have reviewed “international” literature and web sites, and it is only fitting that now it is time for the Norwegian “domestic” literature to be reviewed. Assess the vulnerability of your production system was written back in 1997, by Bjørn Egil Asbjørnslett and Marvin Rausand, both now high-profile academics within risk analysis in Norway.

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Robustness, flexibility and resilience

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Revised on: 2015-12-02

In a previous paper, back in 2004, I discussed the issue of Flexibility and robustness as options to reduce risk and uncertainty. Since then a new term has emerged: resilience, and today I would like to compare these three terms. Robustness is the ability to accommodate  any uncertain future events or unexpected developments such that the initially desired future state can still be reached. Flexibility is the ability to defer, abandon, expand, or  contract any investment towards the desired goal. Resilience is the ability of a system to return to its original state or move to a new desirable state after being disturbed.

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Flexibility and robustness as options to reduce risk and uncertainty

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Revised on: 2015-12-02

Any company operating in international markets will face a multitude of risks. Acknowledging these risks and devising a strategy for how to deal with these risks is a prerequisite for survival in today’s competitive market. Assuming that the task to come up with a new strategy implies that the old strategy has outlived itself or at least has proven itself wrong on too many occasions, the stage is now set for a new approach. This paper will first present the main risks that are facing any company. Then, the available options to reduce these risks will be considered. Finally, in relation to these risks, flexibility and robustness will be introduced as a tool to handle uncertainties (risks).

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