IMPROVING SUPPLY CHAIN RESILIENCE THROUGH METHODS OF FAST ADAPTATION TO SUDDEN DEMAND SHIFTS IN THE TIME OF CRISIS

Abstract

Supply chain resilience is a topic long discussed, however, spread of the newly
emerged COVID-19 virus pandemic in 2020 and subsequent application of measures
to deal with it had strong impact on supply chains. One of the challenges of 2020,
which companies had to face, was a sudden change in demand. While commonly
known forecasting methods are able to estimate demand that behaves according to the
historical experience, need for different approach to sudden shifts in demand both up
and down, arose. Research into comparison of such methods was carried out and they
were tested on data from the outbreak of COVID-19 virus pandemic crisis in the
Czech Republic, when applied measures and concerns of people caused a significant
change that had impact on the demand for various goods.
Key words: supply chain, supply chain resilience, demand forecasting, Covid-19,
mean absolute percentage error (MAPE)