supply chain

noun

plural supply chains

: the chain of processes, businesses, etc. by which a commodity is produced and distributed : the companies, materials, and systems involved in manufacturing and delivering goods

The pandemic has disrupted nearly every aspect of the global supply chain—that's the usually invisible pathway of manufacturing, transportation and logistics that gets goods from where they are manufactured, mined or grown to where they are going. At the end of the chain is another company or a consumer who has paid for the finished product.

—Peter S. Goodman

Everyday life in the United States is acutely dependent on the perpetual motion of the supply chain, in which food and medicine and furniture and clothing all compete for many of the same logistical resources. … [W]hen a finite supply of packaging can't keep up with demand, when there aren't enough longshoremen or truck drivers or postal workers, when a container ship gets wedged sideways in one of the world's busiest shipping lanes—the effects ripple outward for weeks or months, emptying shelves and raising prices in ways that can seem random. All of a sudden, you can't buy kettlebells or canned seltzer.

—Amanda Mull

Examples of supply chain in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

In 2022, 81 percent of respondents had been worried about sourcing glass; 19 percent had no supply chain worries. —Roxana Popescu, San Diego Union-Tribune, 9 May 2024

An understanding as to how resilient ICEs are is spreading across the automotive supply chain, with many in the industry quietly stepping back from earlier commitments to go fully electric within the next five to 10 years. —Patrice Haettel, Fortune, 8 May 2024

Huawei doesn’t rank in Qualcomm’s list of top 10 customers, according to Bloomberg supply chain analysis. —Mackenzie Hawkins, Fortune Asia, 8 May 2024

The offshore wind industry has recently been hit by a perfect storm of rising inflation, higher interest rates and supply chain delays. —Andrew Stuttaford, National Review, 6 May 2024

In his view, global supply chains and a few standardized cultivars have separated Britain’s population from the apple of its eye. —Sam Knight, The New Yorker, 4 May 2024

According to rumors from noted iPad supply chain analyst Ross Young, a new 12.9-inch iPad Air will pack the mini-LED that was a surplus of the previous-gen iPads. —Kyle Barr / Gizmodo, Quartz, 3 May 2024

It’s been in operation since 2016, and the havoc that COVID wrought on global supply chains means that it’s being retired two years later than anticipated. —Tom Hawking, Popular Science, 1 May 2024

And too-restrictive regulations could disrupt the critical supply chain that provides the nation’s milk, Lehenbauer said. —Lisa M. Krieger, The Mercury News, 26 Apr. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1948, in the meaning defined above