Our shared business history is filled with the stories of the victors, yet we systematically forget the learnings of supply chain failures.

Start-ups and corporations are inspired by the journeys of business heroes. Yet, it is difficult to understand why those heroes won while others languished, or even more commonly failed. Those failures, the pitfalls, are overshadowed by stories of glory. The learnings of supply chain failures are thereby forgotten, erased, and replaced by an ever-trending story of stock market highs and new infrastructure to handle even more logistics needs.

But what happened to all of those supply chains that failed? Was their approach different? What were the causes of their failures? What trappings did the business heroes of today avoid?

The answers to those questions is silence. A database of supply chain operations failures did not exist. Until now.

This working paper outlines historical supply chain vulnerability to improve resiliency and help prevent major disruptions before they happen. Furthermore, it provides an easy to understand framework of how supply chains have failed, thereby helping us to avoid the failures of the past.

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