Tag: weather

OM in the News: Biggest Supply Chain Threats for 2026

 IndustryWeek (Jan. 12, 2026) outlines four critical events poised to significantly impact the supply chain this year based on a research study by Evergreen Analytics:

  • Geopolitical fragmentation and the strategic use of trade regulations.
  • Extreme weather intensification.
  • Critical infrastructure aging and failure.
  • Cyberattacks on logistics.

Geopolitical fragmentation and the strategic use of trade regulations, ranked as the most notable risk for 2026 supply chains, giving it a “threat level” score of 97%. Abrupt geopolitical shifts have the potential to upend political alliances, alter trade relationships, create regional uncertainties and disrupt logistics networks.

In addition, rapid tariff and policy adjustments have become the new normal for supply chain management. From 2023 to 2025, export controls that caused severe disruptions doubled, and other trade restrictions increased 167%.

The next risk, extreme weather intensification, was given a “threat level” score of 93%. As the frequency and severity of these weather events continues to climb, firms are encouraged to  advance climate modeling for procurement, supply chain and logistics operations. They should also prioritize geographic diversification, increased inventory buffers and flexible logistics networks that can rapidly reroute around weather-impacted areas..

Third, critical infrastructure aging and failure, received a “threat level” score of 81%. Compromised infrastructure and transportation networks, combined with the previous risk of extreme weather, pose a real threat to supply chain operations. The Infrastructure Moment report by McKinsey & Company estimates that $106 trillion in investments, including $36 trillion for transport and logistics, will be needed to meet the need for updated infrastructure through 2040.

It is predicted that at least one multibillion dollar disruption because of failing infrastructure will occur this year. This implies that supply chain managers must develop comprehensive infrastructure risk assessments that go beyond their immediate suppliers to include the broader transportation and utility networks their operations depend on.

Lastly, cyberattacks on logistics sits at a “threat level” of 70%. Between 2021 and 2025, there was a 965% increase in attacks on logistics operations. It is  projected that cyberattacks on logistics operations will double this year. The five industries that experienced the most cyberattacks last year are: Manufacturing, Electronics,  Automotive,  Food & Beverage, and Logistics.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Compare these threats to supply chains to the ten discussed in Table 11.4 (page 474) in your Heizer/Render/Munson text. Which match?
  2.  Why do you think geopolitical issues is ranked first in this study?

 

OM in the News: The Great Southwest Air Christmas Meltdown

On pages 608-9 of your text, the Global Company Profile for Ch. 15 features Alaska Airlines and is titled “Scheduling Flights When Weather is the Enemy.” The case study in the Linear Programming chapter (Module B) discusses how LP software drives staff and plane scheduling in that industry.

Southwest Airlines software is an aging in-house system called SkySolver, which as The Wall Street Journal (Dec 29, 2022) writes: “This Christmas, SkySolver not only didn’t solve much, it also helped create the worst industry meltdown in recent memory.” SkySolver was overwhelmed by the scale of the task of sorting out which pilots and flight attendants could work which flights. Crew schedulers instead had to comb through records by hand.

 Even as SkySolver tried to solve one set of problems, new ones would emerge. Crews and planes were out of place. Phone lines jammed up, and Southwest staffers trying to get assignments couldn’t get through to the scheduling department. The airline was scrambling just to figure out where its crew members were located.

Southwest canceled more than 13,000 flights between Dec. 22 -27, while stranding passengers and bags across the country. This isn’t the first time that a disruption has ballooned at Southwest, and the carrier’s struggle shows how its increasingly complicated network needs a better technology foundation.

Pilots for years complained that SkySolver often spits out fixes that don’t make much sense, sending crews on circuitous journeys around the country as passengers to meet flights, a practice known as “deadheading.”

By Dec. 26, Southwest realized it needed a full reboot. In an effort to get pilots, flight attendants and planes into position, the airline took draconian measures. It canceled two-thirds of its planned flights for multiple days, and locked up seat inventory on its website so customers couldn’t buy tickets for a flight that might ultimately be canceled.

Unlike many rival airlines, Southwest’s planes generally hop from one city to another, rather than orbiting a major hub. That approach lets Southwest maximize use of its planes and crew, but the daisy chain structure also makes its network more delicate—problems in one corner of the country can be difficult to contain.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Why did the scheduling software fail?
  2. What options do operations managers have at this point?

OM in the News: OM and the Christmas Rush at UPS

“Lots of people like a white Christmas, but the notion keeps United Parcel Service up all night”, writes the Wall Street Journal (Dec. 23, 2011). Which is why UPS picked Louisville and its mild climate for its sprawling global hub. The  Worldport spans the length of 90 football fields and employs 6,000 graveyard shift workers to fulfill its next day service. And during this busy holiday season, even desk job employees jumped in to handle the overload as it travelled down 155 miles of conveyor belts.

About 125 jets –up from 85 the rest of the year–landed each night this season, all between 11pm and 3am. The packages had to be sorted and reloaded onto planes before sunrise to reach their final destinations. It’s all about operations management, just as it is for FedEx (which we describe in the Global Company Profile for Chapter 8, Location Strategy). If a flight is late and the package misses its delivery, freight operators generally have to eat the cost of the shipment. Each late delivery subtracts $5-$30 from UPS’ bottom line.

UPS meteorologist at the status board

A “hot status board”on the wall lists cities and regions where UPS positions spare planes and crews, prepared to “rescue volume”, that is, packages stuck somewhere because of weather or mechanical problems. More than a million such packages are indeed “rescued” every year at UPS. If they had been late, the loss would have been $20 million.

Discussion questions:

1. Why did UPS select Louisville as its Worldport hub?

2. Why is OM at the heart of UPS’ business?