With the benefit of new research from the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, Yossi Sheffi looks at the many ways that the modern supply chain can be disrupted in his new book, The Resilient Enterprise: Overcoming Vulnerability for Competitive Advantage (MIT Press, October 2005). He argues that a company’s success depends more on what’s done before an unpredictable event occurs—whether it’s a fire at a primary supplier, closing of a key port, or a terrorist attack—rather than what’s done during the event.
The book offers a framework for understanding vulnerability, examining the causes and nature of high impact disruptions and providing guidance on how today’s complex, global supply chains should be set up and managed for maximum resiliency. Rather than use extra inventory and other redundancies to absorb demand or supply shocks, Sheffi focuses on building flexibility into the organization. He says standardization, modular design, collaborative relationships with suppliers (and other stakeholders), distributed decision making and communication at all levels can create a more resilient supply chain.
Yossi Sheffi is professor of engineering systems at MIT and director of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics.
Source: MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics.
