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The purpose of this article is to compare design choices and assess the structural complexity of six manufacturing supply chains (SCs) of the Brazilian wind turbine industry.

The research method is quantitative modeling. This study adopts the social network perspective to provide a broad set of network metrics for comparative analysis and characterization of the structural configuration and complexity of SCs. Transaction costs and the risk of disruption supported the metrics employed in the study. Network size, network density, core-size and centralization metrics stem from transaction costs, whereas constraint and betweenness centrality stem from risk of disruption.

The main conclusion is that, in the Brazilian wind manufacturing industry, increasing the SC structural complexity by adding redundant ties to minimize disruption risks, even implying higher transaction costs, increases the capacity to win orders.

Only the Brazilian wind turbine industry was studied. Therefore, findings are not general, but specific, to the case.

Managers and practitioners of the Brazilian wind turbine industry should focus on increasing the complexity of their SCs, even if it increases transaction costs, to ensure due dates compliance in orders.

To the best of the available knowledge, there is no commonly accepted or shared measurement for SC complexity, and this study proposed an alternative approach to bridge this research gap, the structural perspective of social networks. Traditional measures were complemented by new metrics, and the power of the application of social network analysis to SC investigations was empirically demonstrated in different levels of analysis.