The great supply slowdown of the early 2020s has generated renewed interest in the topic of supply chain resilience — the practice of building a supply chain that can resist disruptions. As companies patch holes from shortages related to the Covid-19 pandemic,

Yet, organizations should not focus too much time prepping for another pandemic or trying to handicap the next disruption, says MIT supply chain resilience researcher Jim Rice. Instead, they should build resilience to protect against any threat.

“We are seeing a recency bias in which people say we need to prepare for the next pandemic,” says Rice, deputy director for the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics. “But the next big disruption is probably going to be something else. My guess would be a cyberattack, but nobody knows. It does not matter if you lost your factory because of a labor strike or a hurricane. You still need a plan to recreate your core capabilities. Resilience is not mitigation — it is creating the capability to recreate lost capacity.”