Fourteen supply chains under extreme pressure.
Every case study begins with the real story and then looks beneath it at the supply chain that made the operation possible. Overviews are open. Full chapters open with access.
International Space Station
Supply Beyond Earth — How do you operate a laboratory and permanently inhabited outpost when almost everything it needs must first be launched from Earth?
South Pole / McMurdo
The Last Delivery — Antarctica operates around a supply chain with an expiry date.
Berlin Airlift
A City Supplied by Air — When the Soviet blockade cut normal surface access to West Berlin, an airlift had to become the supply chain for an entire city.
Operation Barbarossa
When the Supply Line Breaks — Germany's 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union demonstrates what happens when an army advances faster than the supply network behind it.
Normandy / Red Ball Express
Feeding the Breakout — After Allied forces broke out of Normandy, military success created a new problem: the front began moving faster than ports and railways could support it.
Chernobyl Cleanup
Logistics Inside the Exclusion Zone — The response to Chernobyl created a supply chain where workers, vehicles and equipment could themselves become contaminated.
Apollo Lunar Missions
No Spare Parts Store on the Moon — Apollo represents perhaps the ultimate no-resupply supply chain.
COVID-19 Vaccine Ultra-Cold Chain
The Coldest Supply Chain on Earth — The early Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine rollout required a global distribution network capable of protecting a highly temperature-sensitive product while billions of doses were being demanded simultaneously.
Operation Desert Shield / Desert Storm
Building the Iron Mountain — Before the Gulf War could be fought, an enormous military supply chain had to be constructed in the Saudi desert.
2010 Haiti Earthquake Relief
When the Gateway Breaks — Humanitarian aid surged toward Haiti just as the country's infrastructure was least capable of receiving it.
NATO Logistics in Afghanistan
The Landlocked War — Supplying a modern military operation in landlocked Afghanistan required supply routes stretching across continents and politically sensitive borders.
Toyota After the Tōhoku Earthquake
The Hidden Supplier — Toyota's response to the 2011 earthquake and tsunami exposed how apparently diversified supply chains can still depend upon critical suppliers several tiers upstream.
Global Semiconductor Shortage
The Tiny Part That Stops the Factory — During the global semiconductor shortage, components worth only a few dollars could prevent vehicles worth tens of thousands from being completed.
Formula 1 Global Logistics
The Travelling Factory — Formula 1 effectively dismantles and rebuilds a sophisticated engineering operation around the world throughout the season.