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

Roughly one of every five U.S. factories that failed to produce at full capacity cited a shortage of workers, Jason Miller, a professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University, found in a January study analyzing government data. —Max Zahn, ABC News, 24 May 2025

Questions have swirled over the park’s future after the 2022 sale of its property for $310 million to Prologis, a warehouse and supply chain logistics company. —Jason Mastrodonato, Mercury News, 24 May 2025

The administration’s tariff regime, including 30% tariffs on imports from China, will likely increase supply chain costs for Tesla, SpaceX and xAI. —John Hyatt, Forbes.com, 24 May 2025

Related Stories As the apparel industry tries to overcome its stock issues, how can supply chain partners improve inventory management? —Sarah Jones, Sourcing Journal, 23 May 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1948, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for supply chain

• aeroplane
• appertain
• ascertain
• capitaine
• cassegrain
• cellophane
• chatelaine
• counterpane
• entertain
• gethsemane
• halothane
• hurricane