What’s changed in the Defence Supply Chain Overview?

Supply chains have faced many challenges over the past few years. For defence supply chains there have been a number of unusual factors, from the war in Ukraine to the impact of COVID-19, which showed just how fragile some supply chains really are. The Defence Supply Chain Overview is designed to be a response to these challenges, outlining ways in which the industry can respond.

What’s in the Defence Supply Chain Overview?

1. A perspective shift to embed resilience. Given the way in which many supply chains were exposed as being fragile during COVID, the government’s approach has been to set out a new way to ensure more resilience in the Defence Supply Chain Overview. The strategy focuses on moving away from cost optimisation and towards decisions to be made around supply chain resilience instead. In order to achieve this, there are four elements that need to balance out:
2. • The costs associated with a supply chain, relative to a particular solution’s reliability and performance.
   • A delivery reliability assessment.
   • Looking at how well a supplied product meets quality standards or specifications, as well as assessing how responsive a supplier is to changed requirements.
   • Issues around sustainability and a more environmentally sound approach.
3. A maturity ambition for 2030. Commercial fragmentation significantly undermines the defence supply chain and this is something that the Defence Supply Chain Overview has sought to rectify through the changes it is making. Taking steps to improve resilience will hopefully enable a functional maturity ambition to be realised for the Defence Supply Chain by 2030 so that commercial fragmentation is a thing of the past.
4. A bi-modal operating model. The intention behind the bi-modal operating model is to create more resources to react when there is a supply chain crisis. It’s envisioned that this will be achieved in two key ways:
   1. Mode 1. For businesses across the defence industry and its partners, this is a business-as-usual type approach. However, with the added emphasis on ensuring continuous improvement.
   2. Mode 2. The Defence Supply Chain Overview sees Mode 2 as the mechanism that comes into play when it’s necessary to react to something like a pandemic that has triggered recent supply chain crises. Whether it is responding to shock events or mitigating anything that poses a threat to supply that is likely to have a significant impact on defence outputs, Mode 2 is designed to be a more effective response. This can be achieved through both reactive and proactive actions.

The Defence Supply Chain Overview has changed a lot in terms of outlooks following the problems that have beset supply chains for defence organisations (and their partners) in recent years. The fresh focus on resilience comes from the learning that all have had to do in the wake of the problems that have occurred. Ultimately, the goal of the Defence Supply Chain Overview is to support the general aim to ensure that both forces and equipment are ready to confront threats and deploy quickly wherever required.