Supply-Chain Resilience: Not Just for Big Events

There's no pill for resilience, but you can't blame executives of a pharmaceutical company for wishing one existed. When the patent on one of their most popular drugs was about to expire, the executives predicted the market would soon be overtaken by generic versions. So they optimized their supply chain, lowering equipment use and capacity requirements for the popular drug, and allocated surplus capacity for new drugs. But then, to everyone's surprise, regulatory matters delayed the generic's market entry. The executives found themselves in a jam.