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Logistics & Supply Chain vocabulary · Supply Chain Management

Disruption

Meaning in logistics & supply chain, with examples

/dɪsˈrʌpʃən/nounCommon term

In logistics & supply chain, disruption means: An unexpected event that interrupts the normal flow of goods, such as a natural disaster, a strike, a port closure, a cyber attack or a supplier failure.

In Turkish: aksama, kesinti, tedarik zinciri aksaması

How it is used

A central topic in risk management since the pandemic and the shipping problems that followed it. Companies plan for, respond to and recover from disruptions, and build resilience through dual sourcing, safety stock and better visibility.

Example sentences

  1. The flooding caused a two-week disruption at our main supplier's plant.

  2. We now map our tier-2 suppliers so that we can see disruptions earlier.

Common collocations

  • supply chain disruption
  • cause disruption
  • minimize disruption
  • disruption to deliveries
  • recover from a disruption
  • supply chainThe whole network of companies, people and activities that turns raw materials into a finished product and moves it to the final customer.
  • sourcingThe work of finding, evaluating and selecting suppliers for the goods or services a company needs, including deciding where in the world to buy from.
  • safety stockExtra stock kept on top of expected demand to protect against sudden increases in demand or late deliveries from suppliers.
  • visibilityThe ability to see where goods, orders and stock are at any moment along the supply chain, usually through shared real-time data.
  • just-in-timeAn approach in which materials arrive exactly when they are needed for production or sale, so that very little stock is held.

More terms: Supply Chain Management

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