This paper draws on work on supply chain disruption that has been ongoing at the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics since 2002 as part of the MIT-Cambridge Institute, which is funded by the U.K. government. The project, which was motivated by 9/11, has looked at numerous cases of disruption, discovering the common traits between corporations and supply chains that performed well and distinguishing them from those that did not. It involved detailed studies of many dozens of companies and follow-ups with managers who were involved with disrupted operations.

The companies studied fell into two groups. The first group included 35 members of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics’ Supply Chain Exchange Program, with which the Center’s researchers have ongoing interactions. The research team examined their security and resilience strategy. The second group included companies that had actually experienced disruptions. They were chosen based on leads received from the first group, media reports of disruptions and contacts that the research team had with the insurance industry and supply-chain management professionals. Not all these companies agreed to interviews on the record due to the sensitive nature of the subject. In some of these cases, the research team relied upon secondary research and public-domain sources.

In addition to telephone surveys and in-depth interviews, the research drew upon six conferences, three at MIT and three in the United Kingdom, in which many companies shared their security, resilience and disruption experiences with the MIT research