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Contributors›Piyush Shah
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Assistant Professor

Piyush Shah

Certified Associate trainer for APICS CSCP and CPIM certifications and am in Supply Chain training / Consulting.

4 articlesLinkedIn ↗X ↗
Contributor Brief·Piyush Shah · 4 articles
Updated May 14, 2024

Supply chain fragility demands radical simplification, not incremental fixes

Shah argues that supply chain transparency creates new operational vulnerabilities rather than solving them, forcing businesses to choose between complexity and resilience. He contends that counterintuitive solutions—like reducing product variety and simplifying networks—are more effective than technology-driven visibility alone.

1

single infrastructure failure collapsed Baltimore's entire supply corridor

“Increased transparency forces businesses and regulators to respond faster and more strategically to disruptions.”

The Shifting Dynamics of Supply Chain Management

Supply chain vulnerability across operational dimensions

Single-point infrastructure failures10
Excessive SKU proliferation9
Visibility without strategic response capacity8
Geographic concentration in traditional markets7
Lack of redundancy in critical corridors10

SHARE

23%Single-point infrastructure
Single-point infrastructure failures
Excessive SKU proliferation
Visibility without strategic response capacity
Geographic concentration in traditional markets
+1 more

4

distinct sectors where Shah identifies similar fragility patterns

Retailers should reduce SKUs to rebuild supply chain health and customer loyalty simultaneously.

Retailers Should Reduce Their SKUs for a Healthier Supply Chain

Rural expansion reveals that market opportunity and operational risk move in opposite directions.

Quick-Service Restaurants Can Learn Some Good & Bad Strategies from Chipotle's Expansion

“A single bridge collapse exposed America's supply networks as fundamentally fragile.”

Themes:Complexity creates vulnerability, not resilienceInfrastructure fragility requires systematic redesignSimplification outperforms optimization in crisis conditions

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