Ecosilient Index to assess the greenness and resilience of the upstream automotive supply chain

This paper suggests an Ecosilient Index to assess the greenness and resilience of automotive companies and the corresponding supply chain. An integrated assessment model is proposed based on green and resilient practices. The Delphi technique is used to obtain the weights of the supply chain paradigms that are the focus of the study and the corresponding practices. The application of the proposed index is then illustrated using a case study approach in the automotive supply chain; in particular the case study is focused in the link supplier/manufacturer. The case study findings confirm the applicability of this index in a real-world supply chain and highlight its managerial implications. The results show that the resilient paradigm is considered to be the one that contributes more to the competitiveness of the automotive supply chain. The green practice identified as the most important to the greenness of this industry is to reduce energy consumption. The significant contributions to resilience are sourcing strategies that allow switching of suppliers, flexible supply base/flexible sourcing and creating total supply chain visibility. The proposed index was developed in the context of automotive sector; this constitutes an initial effort to close the gap between theory and practice. Future research is needed to investigate the index applicability in different industry contexts. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.