Delivering Airpower: How Innovation in Wartime Foreshadowed Modern Supply Chain Strategies

Modern supply chains claim novel levels of resilience and adaptability, but these were developed in World War I (and later redeployed during World War II) and have been "reinvented" in contemporary business contexts. This article highlights how the supply chains developed for wartime aviation logistics anticipated today's notions of supply chain resilience and adaptability. While the logistic innovations of World War II are widely recognized, those developed during World War I, particularly in aviation, are less well known but equally groundbreaking. The Royal Flying Corps pioneered agile supply chain strategies that sustained continuous air superiority on the Western Front-helping break the stalemate of trench warfare. Innovations such as postponement, strategic warehousing, bidirectional supply, recycling, circular manufacturing, and product service systems addressed the challenges of high attrition, technological advancement, and unpredictable demand.