Risk cascading effect model in the supply chain networks

The cascading failure in supply chain network (SCN) possesses a ripple effect. To analyze the vulnerability of the SCN when it suffers from internal or external perturbations, a cascading failure model of risk propagation is developed in the paper. In the proposed model, the initial risk load of node is proportional to the node’s degree and betweenness. After a node fails where its risk load exceeds its maximum risk tolerance value, its risk will be redistributed to its neighboring nodes. Through numerical simulations, we compare the tolerance parameter for different attacked nodes. The results show that SCN can resist the risk cascading failures by adjusting the tunable parameter to obtain optimal critical threshold.