Readiness & Resilience

  • The Challenge of Rebuilding U.S. Domestic Supply Chains

    Summery: Massachusetts-based Shawmut scrambled to expand production to meet the soaring demand for N95 masks and hospital gowns during the pandemic. Its experiences illustrates a crucial point that policymakers should take to heart: Once a country loses its industrial commons points — the capabilities needed to support the development and production of many goods —…

  • Global supply chains are still a source of strength, not weakness

    Resilience comes not from autarky but from diverse sources of supply For the best part of a week, the Suez canal was blocked by a 200,000-tonne metaphor. The Ever Given is not just one of the world’s biggest container ships, it is also the emblem of a backlash that accuses globalisation of going too far….

  • One Way to Build More Resilient Medical Supply Chains in the U.S

    Summary.   When shortages of PPE and other medical supplies hit in the early months of the pandemic, tens of thousands of domestic producers — from individual to large companies in other industries — sprang into action and made a huge difference. They should not be forgotten after the pandemic is over. Health care organizations should factor them…

  • How great supply-chain organizations work

    When redesigning a supply-chain organization, it’s intuitive to look to successful companies’ design choices. But our research finds that other factors correlate better to bottom-line performance. How do decisions about the design of supply-chain organizations affect the overall performance of a business? We recently analyzed the supply-chain organizations of more than 50 companies in a…