Technological Capability Prioritization for Resilient and Sustainable Supply Chains

Modern supply chains operate in environments characterized by unprecedented volatility stemming from geopolitical tensions, climate-induced disruptions, inflationary pressures, and evolving regulatory frameworks on carbon emissions. Technological capabilities have emerged as essential enablers that not only strengthen resilience—the ability to anticipate, absorb, adapt to, and recover from disruptions—but also support sustainable closed-loop operations. This study systematically identifies, validates, and ranks key technological capabilities to guide strategic investments that simultaneously enhance resilience and align with sustainability objectives, including spot-to-point inflation adjustments and carbon emission policies. An exhaustive review of contemporary literature produced an initial pool of twelve technological capabilities. A panel of five domain experts validated and refined the list through three iterative rounds of the Fuzzy Delphi method. The nine retained capabilities were subsequently prioritized using the Best-Worst Method (BWM), a structured pairwise comparison technique that minimizes cognitive load while delivering highly consistent weights. The model was solved via linear programming, explicitly incorporating sustainability constraints derived from closed-loop network design principles. Supply chain agility (weight = ۰.۲۸۷), technological collaboration (۰.۱۵۵), and capacity expansion (۰.۱۵۵) ranked as the most critical capabilities. These priorities diverge markedly from those obtained through sequential weighting approaches, highlighting BWM's superior sensitivity to sustainability contexts and expert anchoring. By embedding inflation-adjusted and carbon-constrained closed-loop principles directly into the prioritization process, this research bridges the resilience and sustainability literatures. The Fuzzy Delphi-BWM hybrid offers a streamlined, low-burden, and consistent methodology that outperforms traditional techniques for technology investment decisions in volatile environments.

کلیدواژه ها:

Supply chain resilience ، Technological capabilities ، Fuzzy Delphi ، Best-Worst Method ، Sustainable closed-loop supply chain ، Carbon emission policy