1ROADMAP STRATEGIES FOR A POST-PANDEMIC ERAtargets, due to shortages of Chinese-sourced iPhones. UK-based construction equipment manufacturer JCB put its nine manufacturing plants on short-time working due to component shortages but, as demand collapsed, it was soon forced to close them completely.Such stories were typical of many but, by early summer, a semblance of normality began to return. Yet for procurement organisations and supply chain functions, it was clear the world had changed: a ‘new normal’ – volatility 2.0 – had arrived.Once again, leaned-down Just In Time (JIT) supply chains had demonstrated a significant lack of resilience when hit by disruptive events, as they had in 2010, after the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano and the subsequent closure of much of Europe’s air space, and again in 2011, with the earthquake and ensuing tsunami that hit northeastern Japan. Likewise, too, with the extensive flooding of many of Thailand’s manufacturing areas in 2011, and the disruption to supply chains between the UK and Europe in 2015, brought about by a combination of striking French ferry workers and migrants seeking to enter the UK by stowing aboard goods vehicles.NEW ENVIRONMENTOf course, the commercial environment has changed considerably since many of those leaned-down JIT supply chains were put in place: Brexit, protectionism, the return of trade tariffs and quotas – such trade frictions are all too liable to interrupt JIT supply chains’ smooth operation.Moreover, new rules now applied. For safety-critical and business-critical items, western business leaders no longer wanted leaned-down JIT supply chains. Forget China; they wanted inventory on hand, available now, and lots of it. “In procurement organisations, there’s a growing perception that we’ve taken JIT too far,” says Wendy Tate, professor of supply chain management at the University of Tennessee, and coeditor-in-chief of the Journal of Purchasing and Supply Chain Management. “Eliminating waste is good, but inventory isn’t necessarily the same as waste. Take out too much inventory, and you add risk. In short, we need to rethink what JIT means and the trade-offs.” nAs the Covid-19 coronavirus spread, large parts of the industrialised world slipped into various forms of lockdown.The Chinese city of Wuhan was first, locking down on 23 January 2020. Other cities in the country duly followed, with Italy leading the way in Europe, with a lockdown covering much of northern Italy imposed on 8 March. By then, the virus had already reached New York, which began to shut down on 17 March.Few of the world’s largest businesses – those with extended, cross-border supply chains – were unaffected. And with suppliers’ factories around the world temporarily shuttered, containers of freight stuck in ports and airlines not flying, supply chains and manufacturing plants simply ground to a halt.Technology giant Apple warned investors that it could not meet its quarterly revenue EXECUTIVE SUMMARYn The Covid-19 induced supply crisis was merely the latest in a long list, and it certainly will not be the last. n Holding more inventory is a tempting response, but it’s the wrong response.n Build resilience and flexibility, source differently and incentivise supplier collaboration and flexibility.n To succeed, companies must change their mindsets. Having the right technology helps to operationalise those changed mindsets. 2ROADMAP STRATEGIES FOR A POST-PANDEMIC ERAAccording to a survey carried out by the University of Warwick, the most popular strategy (55%) to mitigate disruption to the supply chain caused by the Covid-19 pandemic is to hold more inventory.Yet if Just In Time (JIT) has leaned supply chains too far, the answer shouldn’t be to go back to the era of ‘just in case’, with its bloated inventory holdings and lengthy throughput times. JIT has done too much good for that, delivering significant improvements in inventory, labour costs, quality, response times and space requirements.“JIT principles are here for the long run, as the benefits have outrun a just-in-case inventory philosophy,” says Krish Vengat, vice-president for consulting at GEP. “In many cases, JIT worked just fine, barring minor disruptions. Moving from JIT to just-in-case for all your needs without proper consideration takes us back at least 25 years.”Beginning in the 1980s, the application of JIT and lean manufacturing techniques to supply chains transformed how businesses operated. Pull-based scheduling and replenishment sought to