War, pestilence and plague. While those calamities have brought down civilizations, their modern day counterparts can cause severe disruptions to supply chains. Materials handling and logistics professionals need to be aware of the possibilities and prepare accordingly, say members of a panel discussion session held last month at the Council of Logistics Management (CLM) conference in San Francisco.

For instance, the Y2K scare two years ago was actually a blessing of sorts for Hewlett-Packard. The company planned for worst-case scenarios in case the world's computer systems crashed and disrupted supply chains.

"We actually had worked out a scenario for what would happen if there were no air shipments for three days," said Don Schmickrath, VP of product process organization. "Little did we know it would have to be implemented after 9-11."

Additionally, Schmickrath said his company has to prepare for natural disasters that may occur where much of his supply originates, such as typhoons and floods in Asia and earthquakes in California. He said that flexibility is a must.

"After 9-11, many others were creating inventory buffers. We could not do that or we would be out of business," Schmickrath said. "Our problems have to be resolved within our supply chain. So, if a supplier goes down because of disaster, we have plans to shift that burden to another supplier somewhere else in the world."

Nike is another company that has examined its supply chain since 9-11.

"We cannot assume away the risks. And we cannot assume that the past will be the future," said Dennis Colard, VP of global operations.

Nike imports 180 million pairs of footwear each year and about the same amount of apparel. Most of this comes from Asia. It obviously has a major interest in import and customs security issues, which have faced greater scrutiny since 9-11. Currently only about 2% of containers that come through U.S. ports are inspected. So terrorists could use global logistics networks to import weapons of mass destruction.

Nike is now a member of the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism. C-TPAT works with the Department of Homeland Security to provide proper security of imports, while still allowing business to flourish.