Supply chains under COVID-19 disruptions: literature review and research agenda

The novel coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has massively disrupted supply chains at the global and local scales resulting in economic slowdown and social issues. To respond to these changes, supply chains need to quickly adapt to the new situation. This paper presents a review of literature that addresses supply chains under disruptions due to COVID-19 pandemic. Papers are classified based on issues addressed. The major findings or recommendations are discussed. These include the rising importance of safety, digitalisation, localisation, the need to revisit the meaning of efficiency, and the production and distribution of COVID-19 vaccine. We show that most mitigation actions proposed prior to COVID-19 such as redundancy and flexibility are still considered as possible strategies to mitigate supply chain disruptions due to COVID-19, but there are stronger pressures for digitalisation and supply-based localisation. The research agenda is also outlined at the end of the paper.