Supply Chain Risk Management, Second Edition

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Supply Chains and Risk

Supply chains have connected sources of goods to customers for as long as humans have done business. Military organizations have always been involved in logistics, which is moving things over a supply chain, and they still are, as demonstrated by the movement of U.S. and allied forces to Iraq and Afghanistan. But armies aren’t the only organizations involved in supply chains. Toyota’s lean manufacturing, Dell’s make-to-order operations, and Walmart’s revolutionary retail operations all rely on supply chains linked across many source organizations through computer systems.

Supply chains provide all of us with many benefits as consumers. Producers of goods and services need to take advantage of the ...