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 total, the programme is expected to generate broader industrial benefits, supporting 100 additional roles at Rheinmetall’s Telford site and underpinning another 300 jobs across the wider UK supply chain, the British defense ministry said in a press release. —Bojan Stojkovski, Interesting Engineering, 24 May 2026

Meanwhile, algorithms, global finance, and supply chains exert an ever more powerful—if often invisible—force on all of us. —Emily Watlington, ARTnews.com, 24 May 2026

Cook ran the supply chain, the manufacturing, the operations, and the team. —Jodie Cook, Forbes.com, 24 May 2026

From a supply chain and food price perspective, the Biden-era rules targeted a one-time investment or capital cost in equipment upgrade for commercial refrigeration systems, Dalheimer said. —Betty Lin-Fisher, USA Today, 23 May 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1948, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for supply chain

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