A literature-based state of the art review on the identification and classification of supply chain design tasks

Supply chain design (SCD) integrates long-term and strategic decisions on the configuration, planning, and management of supply chains. However, this subfield of supply chain management remains loosely defined and the common understanding of SCD varies widely among authors. This paper seeks to analyse current literature on SCD in order to contribute to a common definition of SCD and a classification of the tasks carried out in SCD. In a first step, a comprehensive review of standard SCM literature is conducted to identify different definitions and understandings of supply chain design as well as the SCD tasks described therein. As a result, a framework for the classification of SCD tasks, the "Supply Chain Design task model", is introduced. In a second step, a review of contemporary high-ranked journal articles on SCD has been carried out in order to validate the framework and classify recent research in the field of SCD.