روند تکاملی مدیریت زنجیره تامین: پیچیدگی، تکنولوژی های نوین و نوآورانه Evolving Trends in Supply Chain Management: Complexity, New Technologies, and Innovative

Supply chain management has become one of the primary key success factors to deal with the increasing complexity of the current business environment [1, 2]. Although supply chain management is a mature discipline, the complexity of actual supply chains has greatly evolved over the last two decades [3– 5] due to the dynamic interaction of a wide range of processes, decisions, and structures, whose understanding becomes essential for gaining a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Indeed, most supply chain management research has focused on the assumption of linear relationships between nodes buyers and suppliers. However, these supply chains are no longer linear systems, but are characterized by network structures with autonomous and heterogeneous members [6]. As a result, the Operations Management community is currently rethinking on celebrated concepts and largely accepted ideas, with the aim of developing new theory that better captures the requirements of this organizational scene. New technologies have also played a key role in the aforementioned evolution of supply chains [7]. Continuous technological developments, such as augmented reality, direct digital manufacturing, warehouse automation, and 3D printing [8, 9]—to name a few—open a new world of opportunities from a supply chain perspective. Tese new technologies not only allow increasing the efciency and fexibility of manufacturing and distribution processes, but also modify the relationship between the diferent echelons of the supply chain, with a special emphasis on the consumer. For this reason, the use of these technologies has been deemed as one of the key tools for frms to enhance their competitiveness and to build up their relationships with up- and downstream supply chain nodes. Accordingly, the applications of these technologies for supply chain management have become a fruitful area of research, given its clear and strong managerial implications. Overall, all these opportunities and challenges currently emerging emphasize the need for fostering innovative methodological approaches in supply chain research [10]. Decision-makers need to be equipped with methodological frameworks that enable them to gain understanding on the diferent problems and to facilitate the fnding of robust solutions. In this regard, several methodological approaches, such as agent-based modelling and fuzzy control systems, have proven to be instrumental laboratories for supply chain analysis and decision-making [11, 12]. In this manner, methodology, together with complexity and technology, becomes the third strategic axis of this special issue aimed at disseminating emerging developments in the supply chain area.