Techniques of risk management in the Central Queensland mining manufacturing supply chains

The focus of this thesis is to examine the use of techniques of risk management employed by companies in Central Queensland's mining manufacturing supply chain. This is a rapidly growing industry sector supporting one of Queensland's major export industries. The specific objective of this research is to examine how companies in the supply chain employ techniques to identify, assess, and manage supply risks.

The research methodology entailed the use of in-depth interviews of companies in Rockhampton, Mackay and Yeppoon in Central Queensland. This method has been selected because of limited empirical data relating to supply chain issues in this field. Quantitative questions have been incorporated into an interview questionnaire to gain more information in the limited time available. A total of 21 interviews were conducted, and methods of qualitative description and descriptive statistics have been used to analyse the subsequent data.

The results show that Supply Unavailable, Supply Price Increase, and Unpredictable Lead Times are three main sources of supply risks perceived by respondents. For risk identification and assessment, specific techniques have been adopted widely, especially Communication with Suppliers. For risk mitigation, Alternative Suppliers when Supply Interrupted is perceived as the most important technique to reduce the impact of risk occurrence, while Close Working Relationship with Suppliers and Localised Sourcing are broadly used as the techniques to reduce the likelihood of risk occurrence. However, traditional buffer-oriented techniques, such as Multiple Sourcing, and Increased Stockpiling and Buffer Inventory, are not as popular in this industry as would be expected from published literature.