7. Resilient Supply Chain Network Design

Introduction and Context

Supply chain network design determines where facilities are located, which suppliers and markets they serve, how products move, and where inventory and production capacity are positioned. Traditionally, network design emphasized cost minimization: firms sought the fewest facilities, the highest utilization rates, large purchasing volumes, and geographically concentrated operations. Such designs can be efficient under stable conditions, but they may become fragile when exposed to pandemics, geopolitical conflict, extreme weather, cyberattacks, trade restrictions, labor disruption, supplier insolvency, or sudden demand shifts.

Resilience changes the design question. Instead of asking only, “What is the least-cost network?” managers must ask, “What network can continue to provide acceptable service when conditions change?” This does not mean eliminating all risk or duplicating every facility. It means deliberately balancing efficiency, flexibility, recovery speed, and economic viability. A resilient network absorbs disruption, maintains critical flows, adapts its configuration, and recovers without unacceptable loss of service, safety, or financial performance.

Network resilience is therefore a strategic capability rather than a temporary contingency measure. It is embedded in sourcing architecture, production footprints, logistics routes, inventory policies, information systems, contracts, and governance. The chapter examines the principal design choices used to create resilient networks: diversification, regionalization, nearshoring, postponement, decoupling points, redundancy, flexible capacity, and strategic inventory positioning.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this chapter, students should be able to:

1. Explain the relationship between supply chain efficiency, vulnerability, and resilience.

2. Distinguish diversification, regionalization, nearshoring, redundancy, flexibility, postponement, and decoupling.

3. Apply network design frameworks to evaluate resilience alternatives.

4. Analyse trade-offs among cost, service, risk exposure, carbon impact, and recovery performance.

5. Recommend inventory, capacity, sourcing, and facility configurations for different risk environments.

6. Evaluate the managerial, technological, ethical, and governance implications of resilient network design.

From Lean Efficiency to Resilient Architecture

A supply chain network consists of nodes and links. Nodes include suppliers, plants, distribution centres, ports, cross-docks, warehouses, retailers, and customers. Links include transportation lanes, information flows, contractual relationships, and financial arrangements. Risk can arise at a node, on a link, or through interactions among several elements.

A highly concentrated network may achieve purchasing economies, standardized processes, and high asset utilization. However, concentration creates dependency. A single-source component, one specialized plant, or one major port can become a bottleneck. Conversely, a highly redundant network may tolerate disruption but impose additional fixed costs, duplicated inventory, lower utilization, and managerial complexity.

The central design problem is not to maximize resilience in isolation. It is to determine the level and form of resilience that is economically justified by the consequences of disruption. A critical pharmaceutical ingredient, for example, may justify dual qualification and regional safety stock, whereas a low-value, easily substitutable packaging item may not.

Several performance dimensions should be considered together:

• Efficiency: normal-condition cost, asset utilization, and working capital.
• Service: availability, lead time, fill rate, and customer promise reliability.
• Robustness: ability to continue operating during disruption.
• Resilience: ability to absorb, adapt, and recover from disruption.
• Agility: speed with which the network can change configuration or respond to demand.
• Sustainability: environmental and social effects of network choices.

A useful design principle is to protect the flows that matter most. Not every product, customer, supplier, or lane deserves the same resilience investment. Criticality, substitutability, time sensitivity, regulatory requirements, and financial impact should guide resource allocation.

Core Design Choices for Resilience

Diversification of Supply and Demand Access

Supplier diversification reduces dependence on one source. It may involve dual sourcing, multisourcing, supplier segmentation, or geographical dispersion. The objective is not simply to increase the number of suppliers; it is to reduce correlated exposure. Two suppliers located in the same flood zone, dependent on the same sub-tier producer, or using the same port may provide only apparent diversification.

Diversification can be vertical, geographical, technological, or contractual. A firm may qualify alternative materials, purchase from suppliers in different regions, use different production technologies, or maintain alternative transport providers. The value of diversification depends on the probability and consequences of disruption, qualification costs, quality differences, and the extent to which suppliers fail independently.

Demand-side diversification also matters. Dependence on one market, customer, channel, or country can create revenue vulnerability. A geographically and commercially balanced customer portfolio can help a firm redirect capacity when one market contracts or becomes inaccessible.

Regionalization and Nearshoring

Regionalization organizes sourcing, production, inventory, and distribution around major demand regions. Nearshoring relocates selected activities to geographically closer countries, while reshoring returns activities to the domestic market. These approaches can reduce transport distance, lead-time variability, border exposure, and coordination difficulty. They may also improve responsiveness and visibility.

Regionalization does not necessarily imply complete self-sufficiency. A firm may retain global sourcing for specialized components while establishing regional final assembly, postponement, or distribution. The appropriate degree of regionalization depends on scale economies, labor and energy costs, trade rules, technical capabilities, market size, and the strategic importance of the product.

A regional network can reduce exposure to a single global shock, but it may increase the number of facilities and reduce aggregate scale. It can also shift risk rather than eliminate it. For example, several regional plants may depend on one globally concentrated raw-material supplier. Network analysis must therefore extend beyond first-tier geography.

Postponement and Decoupling Points

Postponement delays product differentiation, final assembly, packaging, or allocation until better information about demand is available. A generic product may be produced centrally and customized near the customer. Postponement reduces finished-goods variety and lowers the risk of holding the wrong configuration.

The decoupling point is the location in the supply chain where forecast-driven activity changes to order-driven activity. Upstream operations may use forecasts to build common components, while downstream activities respond to actual orders. Moving the decoupling point upstream or downstream changes the balance between efficiency and responsiveness.

Postponement is particularly valuable when products share common modules, demand is uncertain, and customization can be performed quickly. It requires compatible product design, modular processes, reliable information, and adequate local capability. It is less suitable when customization is technically difficult, customer delivery windows are extremely short, or local finishing costs are excessive.

Redundancy and Strategic Alternatives

Redundancy provides spare options: an additional supplier, plant, warehouse, transport route, information system, or production line. Redundancy is a deliberate form of insurance. Its cost is incurred during normal operations so that the network has alternatives during disruption.

Redundancy should be distinguished from duplication. Complete duplication is often unaffordable, while selective redundancy can protect critical points. Examples include reserve tooling, backup power, alternative ports, emergency logistics contracts, cross-trained labor, and a second qualified source for a high-criticality component.

The design challenge is deciding where redundancy creates the greatest risk reduction. Bottleneck resources, long-lead-time components, single points of failure, and items with severe safety or regulatory consequences generally deserve priority.

Flexible Capacity

Flexible capacity allows production or logistics resources to change volume, product mix, location, or timing. It may arise from modular equipment, cross-trained employees, overtime arrangements, contract manufacturing, postponement capability, interchangeable tooling, or shared facilities.

Capacity flexibility is valuable when demand and supply uncertainty are both high. A plant that can manufacture several products may redirect output during a disruption. However, flexibility is not unlimited. It may require qualification, changeover time, specialized labor, maintenance, and quality controls. Effective design therefore measures not only nominal capacity but also the time and cost required to convert capacity.

A useful distinction is between volume flexibility, which changes output quantity, and mix flexibility, which changes the composition of output. A network may possess substantial installed capacity yet remain vulnerable if that capacity cannot produce the required product or cannot be activated quickly.

Strategic Inventory Positioning

Inventory is a resilience mechanism when it is intentionally positioned to protect critical flows. Safety stock, cycle stock, strategic reserves, and work-in-process inventory serve different purposes. Inventory may be held upstream as common components, at a decoupling point, in regional distribution centres, or close to critical customers.

The location of inventory determines what uncertainty it protects against. Upstream inventory can serve multiple markets and reduce obsolescence, while downstream inventory improves local service and protects against transportation disruption. Critical decisions include the amount, location, form, and ownership of inventory.

Strategic inventory should not be interpreted as indiscriminate stockpiling. Excess inventory creates holding cost, obsolescence, damage, working-capital pressure, and environmental burden. The strongest policies link inventory levels to lead-time variability, demand criticality, recovery time, supplier reliability, and replenishment alternatives.

Frameworks for Designing a Resilient Network

The Risk-Exposure and Recovery Framework

A practical assessment begins by mapping the network and identifying critical nodes and links. For each element, managers estimate:

1. Likelihood of disruption.

2. Duration and severity of disruption.

3. Degree of dependency and substitutability.

4. Operational and financial consequences.

5. Time required to detect, respond, and recover.

This assessment can be supported by risk registers, supplier audits, scenario workshops, historical data, and external intelligence. The result is not a precise prediction but a prioritization of resilience investments.

Scenario-Based Network Design

Because future disruptions are uncertain, network design should test multiple scenarios rather than optimize for one forecast. Scenarios may include loss of a major supplier, port closure, regional demand surge, cyber incident, trade embargo, energy shortage, or simultaneous disruption of demand and supply.

For each scenario, the firm evaluates service levels, unmet demand, recovery time, incremental cost, inventory depletion, and capacity activation. A robust network performs acceptably across a range of scenarios, while a flexible network can be reconfigured as conditions become clearer. The distinction matters: robustness relies on preparation, whereas flexibility relies on the ability to change.

Multi-Objective Optimization

Network design models may minimize total expected cost while imposing service and resilience constraints. A simplified objective can be expressed as:

Minimize: normal operating cost + disruption cost + resilience investment cost + environmental and compliance cost.

Subject to constraints relating to capacity, demand fulfillment, facility availability, transport limits, inventory balance, supplier qualification, and recovery time. More advanced models use stochastic programming, robust optimization, simulation, or multi-objective methods to represent uncertainty.

No mathematical model eliminates managerial judgment. Input assumptions about probabilities, recovery times, demand, and costs can be uncertain. Models should therefore be used to compare alternatives, reveal trade-offs, and support discussion rather than create a false impression of precision.

Real Options Perspective

A resilience investment can create an option: the right, but not always the obligation, to use an alternative facility, supplier, route, or technology when conditions change. A small contract with a backup supplier, for example, may appear inefficient during normal operations but provide valuable optionality during disruption.

The value of an option depends on uncertainty, the severity of adverse outcomes, the speed of activation, and the cost of maintaining access. This perspective helps explain why a network may rationally retain some underutilized capacity or alternative suppliers.

Applying the Design Logic

A disciplined design process usually follows these steps:

1. Define strategic requirements. Identify critical products, customers, service promises, regulatory obligations, and acceptable disruption thresholds.

2. Map the extended network. Include sub-tier suppliers, ports, logistics providers, data dependencies, and shared infrastructure.

3. Identify vulnerabilities. Look for concentration, long lead times, common dependencies, single points of failure, and weak visibility.

4. Develop alternatives. Consider sourcing, facility, inventory, postponement, transport, and capacity options.

5. Model scenarios. Test both isolated and compound disruptions.

6. Compare total value. Include operating cost, disruption loss, working capital, implementation expense, carbon impact, and recovery performance.

7. Pilot and qualify. Validate suppliers, processes, systems, and quality requirements before relying on alternatives.

8. Govern and review. Monitor risk indicators and update the design as markets, technologies, and regulations change.

This process should be cross-functional. Procurement may understand supplier economics, operations may understand process constraints, logistics may understand route alternatives, finance may evaluate capital exposure, and commercial teams may understand customer priorities. Resilience is weakened when network choices are made within functional silos.

Illustrative Case: Regionalizing a Medical-Device Supply Network

Background

The following is an illustrative case. Meridian Medical Systems, a fictional manufacturer of diagnostic devices, sells standardized equipment and several country-specific versions. Its most critical sensor module is produced by one specialized supplier in East Asia. Final assembly occurs in one plant, and finished devices are distributed globally from a central warehouse.

Situation and Problem

The company’s network has delivered low unit cost and consistent quality. However, the single sensor supplier has a long qualification lead time, and the central assembly plant operates close to full capacity. A disruption affecting the supplier or the plant could stop global shipments for several months. Demand is also volatile because hospitals may increase orders rapidly during public-health emergencies.

A proposal to build a second complete plant would provide resilience but require substantial capital and could reduce normal utilization. Senior management asks for a balanced design rather than complete duplication.

Analysis

The sensor module is classified as high criticality because it is essential, difficult to substitute, and subject to regulatory approval. The company discovers that a second potential supplier exists in another region but would need eighteen months for qualification. The two suppliers use different sub-tier sources, reducing correlated risk. The firm also finds that final configuration and packaging can be performed in regional facilities without changing the core manufacturing process.

Scenario analysis considers four events: loss of the current sensor supplier, shutdown of the central assembly plant, a demand surge in one region, and a port disruption. The analysis indicates that a backup sensor source provides the greatest risk reduction, while a full second plant is valuable mainly for prolonged disruption. Regional finishing provides faster service and reduces dependence on one distribution centre.

Strategy and Solution

Meridian adopts a layered design. It qualifies the second sensor supplier and signs a capacity-reservation agreement rather than immediately shifting all volume. It holds a controlled reserve of sensor modules and common subassemblies at an upstream decoupling point. The company establishes two regional configuration centres using postponement: generic devices are produced centrally, while country-specific software, documentation, and packaging are completed near demand.

The central plant retains the main production role but introduces cross-training, modular tooling, and a limited amount of flexible contract capacity. Transportation contracts include alternative ports and carriers. A control-tower platform integrates supplier status, inventory, order backlog, and regional demand indicators.

Outcome

Under normal conditions, the design costs more than the original network because it includes qualification, reserve inventory, regional facilities, and contractual capacity. However, it avoids the cost of a fully duplicated plant. During a simulated supplier disruption, reserve inventory supports immediate shipments while the second supplier increases output. During a regional demand surge, configuration work is shifted to the affected region, reducing response time.

The case demonstrates that resilience can be layered. Diversification protects supply, postponement reduces finished-goods exposure, regionalization improves responsiveness, flexible capacity supports adaptation, and strategic inventory bridges the time required for alternatives to activate.

Learning Points

The most important lesson is that resilience is a portfolio of coordinated choices. No single measure solves every vulnerability. A backup supplier without inventory may be ineffective during qualification; inventory without alternative supply may only delay failure; regional facilities without flexible product design may add cost without improving response.

Measurement and Performance Management

Resilient design requires measures that capture more than cost. Useful indicators include:

• time to detect a disruption;
• time to recover to a defined service level;
• time to survive before critical inventory is exhausted;
• percentage of critical spend with qualified alternatives;
• supplier and facility concentration ratios;
• percentage of demand served under disruption scenarios;
• capacity that can be activated within a specified period;
• inventory coverage for critical items;
• recovery cost and revenue at risk;
• emissions and social effects of alternative network designs.

A resilience dashboard should distinguish preparedness from actual performance. Having a backup carrier on paper is not equivalent to having a tested, contractually available route. Similarly, nominal spare capacity may not be usable if products, tooling, labor, or regulatory approvals are unavailable.

Challenges, Limitations, and Common Mistakes

The first challenge is uncertainty. Probabilities and recovery times are difficult to estimate, particularly for rare events and compound disruptions. Excessive confidence in historical data can lead to under-preparation for novel risks.

The second is the cost of qualification and coordination. Alternative suppliers may require audits, testing, tooling, intellectual-property agreements, and regulatory approval. Multiple facilities and suppliers also increase planning complexity and the risk of inconsistent quality.

A third challenge is risk correlation. Geographic diversification is weak when suppliers share the same sub-tier source, energy grid, software provider, or transport corridor. Network maps must therefore reveal common dependencies.

Common mistakes include treating the lowest unit cost as the best network metric, holding inventory without clear protection logic, selecting suppliers solely by geography, assuming that capacity is instantly transferable, and designing contingencies that have never been tested. Another mistake is ignoring recovery sequencing. A firm may have sufficient total capacity but still fail because the wrong component, tool, or information system is unavailable at the required time.

Governance, Ethics, and Regulation

Resilient network design involves governance responsibilities. Supplier diversification should not become an excuse for indiscriminate supplier switching, unfair contract practices, or the transfer of unacceptable labor and environmental risks to lower-cost regions. Due diligence should address labor standards, health and safety, forced labor, environmental compliance, data protection, and responsible sourcing.

Regulated industries must consider product traceability, quality systems, validation, export controls, customs rules, sanctions, and continuity obligations. A substitute supplier or regional facility may be operationally available but legally unusable until approvals are obtained.

Transparency also creates an ethical balance. Firms need sufficient information to manage risk, but they must protect commercially sensitive and personal data. Digital visibility should be governed through access controls, cybersecurity, data-quality standards, and clear accountability for decisions made with automated recommendations.

Digital Technologies and Analytics

Digital tools support resilient design by improving visibility and scenario analysis. Network-design software can compare facility and sourcing configurations, while simulation can test inventory depletion, transport delay, and capacity activation. Supplier-risk platforms combine financial, operational, geographic, and external-event data.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning can detect anomalies, forecast demand shifts, identify patterns in supplier performance, and recommend reallocations. Their value depends on data quality and human oversight. An algorithm trained on stable historical conditions may fail during structural change. Managers should therefore examine model assumptions, uncertainty ranges, explainability, and escalation procedures.

Digital twins can represent facilities, flows, inventory, and constraints in a virtual environment. They allow organizations to test “what-if” scenarios before changing the physical network. However, a digital twin that excludes sub-tier suppliers, manual workarounds, or cyber dependencies may provide misleading assurance.

Current Developments and Emerging Trends

Several developments are reshaping network design. Geopolitical fragmentation is encouraging firms to examine country exposure, trade corridors, and strategic dependencies. Climate risk is moving from a sustainability concern to a facility-location and continuity issue. Companies increasingly assess flood, heat, water, wildfire, and energy risks over the life of an asset.

Additive manufacturing and modular production may enable localized production of selected parts, reducing dependence on long global supply lines. Automation can support regional facilities by reducing labor intensity, although it may introduce dependence on specialized equipment, software, and technical skills.

Circular supply chains also influence resilience. Repair, remanufacturing, recycling, and local recovery networks can reduce dependence on virgin materials and create alternative sources of supply. At the same time, reverse flows add complexity and require quality, traceability, and capacity planning.

The emerging strategic direction is not universal localization. It is selective decoupling: global integration where scale and specialization create value, combined with regional or local alternatives where disruption consequences are high.

Best-Practice Principles

Effective resilient network design generally follows these principles:

1. Design for criticality rather than treating all flows equally.

2. Diversify correlated risks, not merely supplier names or facility locations.

3. Combine structural resilience with operational flexibility.

4. Position inventory at the point where it protects the most consequential uncertainty.

5. Use postponement and modularity to delay irreversible commitments.

6. Qualify and test alternatives before disruption occurs.

7. Evaluate total cost of ownership and total disruption exposure.

8. Integrate sustainability, ethics, regulation, and cybersecurity into design decisions.

9. Use scenarios and sensitivity analysis instead of relying on one forecast.

10. Review the network continuously as demand, technology, climate, and geopolitical conditions change.

Chapter Summary

Resilient supply chain network design balances normal-condition efficiency with the ability to withstand and recover from disruption. The principal design levers are diversification, regionalization, nearshoring, postponement, decoupling points, redundancy, flexible capacity, and strategic inventory positioning. Each provides a different form of protection and carries distinct cost, complexity, sustainability, and governance implications.

A sound design begins with criticality and extended-network mapping, tests alternatives through scenarios, and evaluates total economic and service consequences. Multi-objective optimization and real-options thinking can support decisions, but managerial judgment remains essential. Resilience is strongest when multiple measures are coordinated: alternative supply, flexible processes, strategically positioned inventory, regional responsiveness, digital visibility, and tested recovery arrangements. The objective is not complete duplication or isolation, but a deliberately balanced network capable of adapting to changing conditions.

Key Terms

Resilient supply chain network: A network capable of absorbing disruption, adapting operations, and recovering acceptable performance.

Diversification: Use of multiple independent or differently exposed sources, routes, markets, or technologies.

Regionalization: Organization of supply chain activities around major geographic demand regions.

Nearshoring: Relocation of an activity to a geographically closer foreign country.

Reshoring: Return of an activity to the firm’s domestic country.

Postponement: Delaying product differentiation, assembly, or allocation until demand information improves.

Decoupling point: The point separating forecast-driven operations from order-driven operations.

Redundancy: Deliberate provision of alternative resources or routes beyond minimum operating requirements.

Flexible capacity: Capacity that can change volume, product mix, timing, or location.

Strategic inventory: Inventory intentionally positioned to protect critical flows or bridge recovery time.

Single point of failure: A node or link whose loss can materially interrupt the network because no effective alternative exists.

Risk correlation: The extent to which apparently separate risks are driven by a common cause.

Robustness: Ability to continue operating acceptably despite adverse conditions.

Agility: Ability to change configuration or respond rapidly to changing conditions.

Scenario analysis: Evaluation of network performance under alternative future disruption conditions.

Recovery time: Time required to restore a defined level of operational performance.

Capacity reservation: Contractual or operational arrangement securing access to capacity when needed.

Network concentration: Dependence on a limited number of suppliers, facilities, routes, or regions.

Selective decoupling: Maintaining global integration where efficient while creating regional alternatives for critical exposures.

Review Questions

Short Answer Questions

1. How does a resilient network differ from a low-cost network?

2. What is the purpose of a decoupling point?

3. Distinguish nearshoring from reshoring.

4. Why may two suppliers in different countries fail to provide true diversification?

5. What is the role of strategic inventory during recovery?

Long Answer Questions

1. Explain how diversification, redundancy, and flexible capacity jointly improve supply chain resilience.

2. Discuss the benefits and limitations of regionalization and nearshoring as network strategies.

3. Explain postponement and analyze the conditions under which it is appropriate.

4. Describe a scenario-based process for designing a resilient supply chain network.

5. Evaluate the role of governance, ethics, regulation, and cybersecurity in resilient network design.

Analytical / Application Questions

1. A manufacturer depends on one overseas supplier for a critical component, while demand is volatile and regulatory qualification takes twelve months. Recommend a combination of sourcing, inventory, and capacity strategies and justify the trade-offs.

2. Compare two network alternatives: a single highly efficient global plant and three regional plants with lower utilization. Analyse their performance under normal operations, a major plant shutdown, and a regional demand surge.

3. Design a resilience dashboard for a logistics network. Select at least six measures and explain how each would support managerial decision-making.

22. Multiple Choice Questions with Answers

Question 1

Which network characteristic creates the greatest vulnerability when a firm relies on one specialized plant with no qualified alternative?

A. High postponement capability

B. A single point of failure

C. Excess regional capacity

D. Demand diversification

Correct Answer: B. A single point of failure

Question 2

What is the principal purpose of postponement in a resilient supply chain?

A. To eliminate all inventory

B. To move every activity closer to the supplier

C. To delay irreversible product commitments until demand is clearer

D. To maximize finished-goods variety before orders arrive

Correct Answer: C. To delay irreversible product commitments until demand is clearer

Question 3

Two suppliers are located in different countries but use the same sub-tier producer and port. What problem remains?

A. Excessive mix flexibility

B. Risk correlation

C. Over-postponement

D. Demand-side diversification

Correct Answer: B. Risk correlation

Question 4

Which action best represents selective redundancy?

A. Duplicating every facility regardless of criticality

B. Removing all backup capacity to maximize utilization

C. Qualifying a second source for a critical, difficult-to-substitute component

D. Holding only obsolete finished goods

Correct Answer: C. Qualifying a second source for a critical, difficult-to-substitute component

Question 5

A company keeps generic components centrally and performs final packaging near customers after orders are received. Which concepts are most directly involved?

A. Postponement and a decoupling point

B. Reshoring and supplier concentration

C. Single sourcing and vertical integration

D. Demand destruction and full duplication

Correct Answer: A. Postponement and a decoupling point

Question 6

Why can nominal spare capacity fail to provide resilience?

A. Capacity is always more expensive than inventory

B. It may lack the required tooling, labor, qualification, or product capability

C. Spare capacity automatically increases demand variability

D. It prevents the use of alternative transport routes

Correct Answer: B. It may lack the required tooling, labor, qualification, or product capability

Question 7

Which measure most directly indicates how long a supply chain can operate before a critical shortage occurs?

A. Supplier purchase price variance

B. Time to survive

C. Facility utilization under normal conditions

D. Number of customer accounts

Correct Answer: B. Time to survive

Question 8

What is the main advantage of scenario-based network design?

A. It guarantees the probability of every disruption

B. It removes the need for managerial judgment

C. It tests performance across alternative disruption conditions

D. It optimizes only normal operating cost

Correct Answer: C. It tests performance across alternative disruption conditions

Question 9

A firm establishes regional configuration centres while retaining global production of common components. This strategy primarily seeks to combine:

A. Global scale with regional responsiveness

B. Complete self-sufficiency with zero inventory

C. Single sourcing with maximum concentration

D. Forecast-driven customization with longer lead times

Correct Answer: A. Global scale with regional responsiveness

Question 10

Which statement best reflects the real-options perspective on resilience?

A. Unused alternatives can have value because they provide choices during uncertainty

B. Only fully utilized assets contribute to resilience

C. Backup suppliers have no value unless they receive all volume

D. Resilience investments should be evaluated only by current unit cost

Correct Answer: A. Unused alternatives can have value because they provide choices during uncertainty