By moving beyond precision-obsessed planning and toward adaptive, probabilistic plans, supply chain planning leaders must set up their organizations to thrive amid uncertainty.
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Antifragility and supply chain resilience are essential during these volatile times
The majority of chief supply chain officers (CSCOs) believe that their organization’s supply chain will be subject to long-term volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA). But neither CSCOs or their supply chains are prepared. Nearly two-thirds of supply chains are in a fragile state, meaning they lose value when exposed to uncertainty.
To deliver value, supply chains must transition from a fragile to resilient to antifragile state in which they gain value amid uncertainty. The shift requires supply chain planning (SCP) leaders to understand how uncertainty affects supply chain planning and decision making, and what needs to change to achieve an antifragile state.
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The journey from fragility to supply chain resilience
The majority of supply chains (63%) are currently in a fragile state, making them vulnerable to uncertainty. Only about 8% are fully resilient, allowing them to maintain value when exposed to uncertainty or disruption. As few as 6% are fully in the antifragile state.
Fragile-state supply chain planning
Traditional supply chain planning methods have left most organizations’ supply chains in a fragile state. While this was once OK, it has become a problem in today’s environment.
Fragile-state planning focuses on precision, aiming to create accurate plans by synchronizing supply and demand. However, long-range planning is often disconnected from tactical planning, resulting in misalignment. What’s more, in a volatile and uncertain environment, disruptions can easily derail these plans, which results in reactive “firefighting” that inevitably harms profitability.
Resilient-state supply chain planning
Some companies, recognizing mounting challenges, have sought to build more supply chain resilience. While resilient supply chains excel at handling small disruptions, they can buckle under large amounts of uncertainty. When the latter happens, the result is reactive decision making and limited ROI.
Resilient-state planning introduces scenario-based strategies, intentional redundancy and real-time response capabilities. However, its precision-focused approach limits the ability to manage uncertainty effectively, and long-range and tactical planning remain misaligned. Tools such as control towers and digital twins aim to enhance visibility, but they are highly complex and costly to implement.
Antifragile-state supply chain planning
While only a small portion of supply chains have embraced antifragility, organizations in this state are by far the best positioned to gain value — even during periods of massive uncertainty. Unlike fragile-state and resilient-state planning, antifragile-state planning attempts to find the right balance between probability and precision, giving leaders greater choice over how resources are distributed.
To move toward antifragile-state planning:
Understand the impacts of uncertainty through experimentation, probabilistic planning and stress testing.
Align network design and sales and operations planning (S&OP) using a shared probabilistic digital model of resource performance.
Focus on resource performance and value metrics rather than plan attainment metrics, reorienting the decision-making process.
Supply chain resilience FAQs
What is supply chain resilience?
Supply chain resilience enables organizations to anticipate and quickly recover from disruptions, keeping their core operations running smoothly. Resilient supply chains sit on a spectrum between fragile and antifragile supply chains. Whereas fragile supply chains suffer a relative loss due to uncertainties, antifragile supply chains can capitalize on these uncertainties and create a relative gain. Resilient supply chains sit between these two extremes and can hold steady in the face of disruptions — especially minor ones — but cannot fully capitalize on the potential opportunities.
What are the key capabilities of fragile, resilient and antifragile supply chains?
The 11 key capabilities of fragile, resilient and antifragile supply chains define where a supply chain is on the uncertainty management spectrum:
Sales and operations planning (S&OP) or integrated business planning (IBP)
Organization of decision making
Calculation of ROI for supply chain investments
Demand and supply planning
View of redundancy
Management of the assessment of uncertainty
Monitoring, adjustments and responsiveness
Decision processes and collaboration
Predictions of the future
End-to-end (E2E) data management
Operating model
How do fragile, resilient and antifragile supply chains manage the assessment of uncertainty?
Fragile supply chains focus on trying to reduce the level of uncertainty to achieve the most accurate supply chain plan. They manage adherence and adjustment to this plan through process governance like S&OP or IBP, and sales and operations execution (S&OE).
Resilient supply chains perform some experimentation on the supply chain plan through scenarios to test the sensitivity of outcomes to different levels of uncertainty in key parameters and variables like lead times, capacity, prices, demand and availability.
Antifragile supply chains perform a high degree of experimentation on a supply chain model. They stress-test by purposefully disrupting it to assess options and outcomes across a wide range of uncertainty levels for different parameters and variables.
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