The Haves and Have-Nots

Although supply chain management might feel like a recent phenomenon -- in part, no doubt, because it has become synonymous with high-tech solutions and software -- supply chains themselves have existed for thousands of years. But it wasn’t until after the second industrial revolution, due to an increasingly globalized economy, that the modern supply chain was born. With the logistics of shipping between point A and point B becoming more and more convoluted, logisticians of the early 20th century scrambled to find new ways to help supply meet demand.

By the time World War II rolled around, supply chain management was certainly an established practice, albeit a still-evolving one. Despite the military supply chain’s relatively new status, many historians attribute America’s success during WWII to logistics rather than strategy, according to Fortune. So what made the WWII supply chain so successful?

Stockpiling The Supplies

As far as the fight in mainland Europe goes, the reasons for the supply chain’s success are easy to identify. Built with incredible speed, the new supply chain was able to move larger quantities of materiel (military materials and equipment, in layman's terms) more quickly to Allied forces than any other extant military supply chain could. Although the U.S. military would later encounter strategic difficulties associated with over-supplying, the impressive stockpile they amassed during WWII only served as a tactical advantage.

While the newly minted Department of Defense certainly played a large role in generating this astounding output, they were not alone in their efforts. As TradeShift points out, it was only by banding together and combining factory outputs that the Allies were able to wage what German forces referred to as materialschlact, or “materiel battle.” Between 1942 and 1944, for example, the U.S. was able to ship more than 17 million tons of cargo to the U.K., including toiletries, cigarettes, maps, and 800,000 pints of blood plasma.

Battle Ships

Although historians attribute the Allied victory to their supply chain logistics, it’s important to note that this logistics management system did employ a great deal of strategy. One reason the U.S. was able to successfully ship such an incredible volume of material was thanks to a tactic they referred to as “island hopping.” It was this tactic that enabled Allied forces to intercept the Japanese supply chain, preventing the Axis powers from amassing a similar stockpile.

As Army Logistician notes, Japan (as an island nation) was particularly dependent on imports across the Pacific. By waging a tonnage war to decrease the volume of supplies reaching Axis military operations, the Allies were able to successfully disrupt their opposition’s economic supply chain. While Allied navies sunk only 214 Japanese naval ships, they sank more than a thousand Japanese merchant ships, rendering 88% of Japan’s merchant shipping fleet operable by 1945.

Their supply chain’s success, therefore, was contingent only on the failure of others’ -- the enormous stockpile of supplies in Europe was significant because Allied forces were able to prevent Axis forces from accumulating the same mass of materiel. In a battle of the haves and the have-nots, the Allies ultimately reigned supreme.