What you'll learn:
- Identify major global disruption trends and early warning signals.
- Explain bullwhip effects, inventory cycles, and how disruptions amplify across supply chains.
- Assess resilience maturity using core pillars: visibility, flexibility, redundancy, response.
- Design resilient sourcing via diversification, regionalization, and supplier partnerships.
- Set risk-based safety stock and flexible capacity strategies to protect service levels.
- Use control towers/AI/IoT concepts to improve visibility while managing cyber risk.
- Build practical response playbooks and lead teams through disruption with clarity.
Disruption is no longer rare—it’s the operating environment.
Consider these realities: the average global manufacturer has faced multiple major supply chain disruptions in the last few years, only about 23% of firms say they can meet customer demand after just one week of disruption to a critical supplier, and cyberattacks targeting supply chains have surged in recent years. Add in climate shocks, geopolitics, port congestion, and sudden demand swings, and “business as usual” becomes a risky assumption.
So how do you keep operations running when everything is shifting under your feet?
That’s exactly what this course, Adapting to Global Disruptions in Operations, is designed to teach.
In this course, you’ll learn how to:
Understand today’s “permacrisis” environment and the five disruption trends reshaping operations (volatility, geopolitics, pandemics, climate, tech)
Explain how disruptions spread through supply chains (bullwhip effect, inventory cycles) and why lean systems can become brittle
Apply practical resilience frameworks (anticipate–withstand–recover–adapt, Illuminate–Sense–Act) to diagnose gaps and build a roadmap
Design more resilient supply chains through diversification, regionalization/nearshoring, and stronger supplier partnerships
Use inventory and capacity buffers strategically (safety stock, flexible labor, modular production, surge capacity) without overcorrecting
Leverage digital tools like control towers, digital twins, IoT, and AI to improve visibility and speed—while managing cyber risk and tech dependence
Lead resilience through culture, clear communication, playbooks, stress testing, and rapid decision-making under uncertainty
You’ll also see these ideas in action through a real-world case study on H‑E‑B’s early COVID-19 response—how they planned ahead, activated a war-room early, protected employees, and maintained service when competitors struggled.
By the end of the course, you’ll have a practical playbook to assess your vulnerabilities, prioritize smart resilience investments, and build operations that can bend without breaking—turning disruption into a competitive advantage.
