Dynamic structural reconfiguration for building supply chain viability under labor shortage

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has directly caused the infection of employees. In the post-COVID-19 era, supply chains (SCs) still face the challenge of labor shortage, due to a series of pandemics. As industry production has been significantly impacted by the uncertain labor capacity, we investigate a new SC viability building problem under labor dynamics, where the SC includes multiple suppliers and a labor-intensive manufacturer. The concerned problem comprehensively includes applying infection control measures, employing a backup supplier and establishing risk mitigation inventory (RMI) to build a viable SC. To portray the dynamics of the labor capacity, we innovatively propose a labor dynamics model based on the classic susceptible-infected-susceptible model. To hedge against disruption risks and uncertain demand, we propose a mixed-integer linear programming model integrated with optimal control methodology. Especially, our optimal control framework can dynamically fulfill SC structural reconfiguration by timely selecting appropriate suppliers to build SC viability. Then an efficient solution method is developed. Numerical experiments validate the efficiency of our algorithm.