Resilient Enterprise

What happens when fire strikes the manufacturing plant of the sole supplier for thebrake pressure valve used in every Toyota? When a hurricane shuts down production at a Unileverplant? When Dell and Apple chip manufacturers in Taiwan take weeks to recover from an earthquake?When the U.S. Pacific ports are shut down during the Christmas rush? When terrorists strike? In TheResilient Enterprise, Yossi Sheffi shows that companies' fortunes in the face of such businessshocks depend more on choices made before the disruption than they do on actions taken in the midstof it--and that resilience benefits firms every day, disaster or no disaster. He shows how companiescan build in flexibility throughout their supply chains, based on proven design principles and theright culture--balancing security, redundancy, and short-term profits. And he shows how investmentsin resilience and flexibility not only reduce risk but create a competitive advantage in theincreasingly volatile marketplace.Sheffi describes the way companies can increase security--reducingthe likelihood of a disruption--with layered defenses, the tracking and analysis of"near-misses," fast detection, and close collaboration with government agencies, tradingpartners, and even competitors. But the focus of the book is on resilience--the ability to bounceback from disruptions and disasters--by building in redundancy and flexibility. For example,standardization, modular design, and collaborative relationships with suppliers (and otherstakeholders) can help create a robust supply chain. And a corporate culture of flexibility--withdistributed decision making and communications at all levels--can create a resiliententerprise.Sheffi provides tools for companies to reduce the vulnerability of the supply chain theylive in. And along the way he tells the stories of dozens of enterprises, large and small, includingToyota, Nokia, General Motors, Zara, Land Rover, Chiquita, Aisin Seiki, Southwest Airlines, UPS,Johnson and Johnson, Intel, Amazon.com, the U.S. Navy, and others, from across the globe. Theirsuccesses, failures, preparations, and methods provide a rich set of lessons in preparing for andmanaging disruptions.Additional material available at www.TheResilientEnterprise.com

Yossi Sheffi, an international expert in supply chain management, is Professor of Engineering Systems at MIT and Director of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics. He has worked with leading manufacturers around the world on logistics issues and is an active entrepreneur, having founded or cofounded five companies since 1987.