Early Warning for Manufacturing Supply Chain Resilience Based on Improved Grey Prediction Model

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Title: Early Warning for Manufacturing Supply Chain Resilience Based on Improved Grey Prediction Model

In my opinion, the manuscript merits publication after major amendments. I have the following concerns that I would want the authors to address:

 

1. The Introduction for the proposed method should be improved, which is not a clear rationale for the whole paper. It is expected to include the evolution progress of the proposed method. It would help the readers better understand the innovation points of this paper. 

2. The research gap, novelty, applications, and limitations of the study must be highlighted in the paper.

3. While determination of indicator weights in section 3, does the five-scale method is equivalent to defining the membership function for the fuzzy complementary judgment matrix?

4. Kindly validate the improvement of TOPSIS method as discussed in section 3.1.2.

5. Justify how the average absolute error of the modified grey prediction results is reduced compared with the traditional grey prediction method.

 

6. To increase the novelty of the paper, authors may take any existing case study to clarify the benefits of the paper.

Author Response

Please see the attachment. Thank you.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

 

I congratulate the authors for the interesting manuscript they presented. The manuscript's main topic  (resilience in the supply chain) is of significant relevance and importance to companies that operate in uncertain environments, as it is common nowadays.

Although the manuscript has the potential to contribute to the research of resilience in the supply chain, the manuscript is somehow incomplete and needs significant improvements.

 

Abstract

It seems adequate.

 

1. Introduction

It seems adequate, however:

(i) The connection between “resilience” and “sustainability” is absent, which is essential once “sustainability” is central to the scope of the journal (Sustainability). The authors should make that connection (and support it in the literature)

(ii) References [1,2] are from conferences. Authours should complement these references with others from high-rated journals.

 

2. Evaluation Index System of Supply Chain Resilience

2.1. Analysis of Indexes Affecting Resilience

To complement the text (lines 97-109), I suggest using a table (with previous studies) to introduce the three dimensions they have proposed to measure resilience (responsiveness, adaptability, and resilience);  this would increase the acceptability on the part of the readers.

 

2.2. Construction of Resilience Evaluation Index System

“The hierarchical model of enterprise supply chain resilience evaluation” (Figure 2) is already a contribution of the authors, so I would expect more explanations of how it was achieved. How were the interviews carried out? Who was interviewed? How were the surveys…? Additionally, the authors should have presented/explained the model briefly in the text.

 

3. Evaluation and Prediction of Supply Chain Resilience

The authors present the proposed model's “mathematics” in this section. However, improvements must be added:

(i) The equation must be numbered;

(ii) Verify if all equations are correct (for example, equation in line 193);

(iii) Certify that all variables are duly presented.

(iv) More references are needed to support the “mathematics”! There are only three references in this section.

(v) Concerning Figure 2, what is “1-AGO” and “IAGO”? The authors should briefly describe In the text the “Early warning process of enterprise supply chain resilience“ presented in Figure 2.

 

4. Numerical Calculation and Analysis

(i) The data acquisition from the enterprise is a little obscure! I would appreciate a comprehensive characterization of the experts and how the survey was done.

(ii) I would also expect some form of discussion of the results in Table 2. How do the results compare with the literature?...

(iii) In Figure 3 what is “density”?

(iv) Clarify lines 335-337. The text says “order response speed is replaced by the 24-h order response ratio”, but in Table 2 it remains “order response speed”!

(v) In subsection 4.4, the discussion of the results/findings should be supported in the literature or/and by the experts interviewed. This would make the conclusion and recommendations more credible.

(vi) A legend with the “Future resilience” and “Resilience” should be added to Figure 5.

 

5. Conclusions

Limitations and future research are missing.

 

References

(i) There is only one reference to the journal “Sustainability”!

 

(ii) The last citation in the manuscript is on page 6 (of 14)!

Author Response

Please see the attachment. Thank you.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Corrections are successfully incorporated. 

Author Response

The authors thank you for your careful review. Your constructive comments, suggestions have greatly improved our manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

I want to congratulate the authors on the improvements to the manuscript.

I am looking forward to seeing the paper published, but before, let me give the authors some small suggestions:

- Table 2 should be mentioned before the presentation/description of the dimensions of resilience and not at the end of section 2.1.

- There is a typo at the end of line 397 (.,)

 

- In figure 5, in the vertical axis, “Recovery” should be aligned with “Adaptability” and “Responsiveness”.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf