Actualities of Supply Chain Concept Evolution

Abstract

In the burgeoning field of supply chain (SC) management at the beginning of the twenty-first century, many predictions have been made to determine the state of the fundamental concepts in the field, as well as stimulate debate, help guide resource allocation and implementation initiatives, and initiate research to improve many of the revolutionary topics in the understanding of SC management. Publications priorities on SC topics have changed considerably since 2000, with the focus more on automatisation and digital technologies. The authors showed the evolution from 1PL to 5PL and technology-related development trends in the supply chain for each decade. Finally, the authors presented the results of bibliometric analysis, during which 12 different clusters on the topic of supply chain were formed. Each cluster presents contemporary criteria announced in the publications during the last two years, particularly in 2022-2023.