Eight in ten manufacturing professionals are bracing for another supply chain disruption before the end of next year, according to a survey published September 24, 2026 by Supply Technologies. 82% of respondents said they're concerned about a new disruption over the next 12 months, a finding that places supply chain resilience at the center of near-term planning conversations across the industry.
The survey polled 50 senior manufacturing professionals and captured both their anxiety about future disruptions and the steps they are already taking in response.
What the Survey Found
The headline number reflects a broad and persistent unease. Over 80% of manufacturing professionals worried about a new disruption within the next 12 months, a level of concern that suggests the operational scars from recent years have not faded.
When asked what they are doing about it, respondents pointed to a mix of inventory, sourcing, and planning moves. 64% reported increasing inventory levels. 54% are looking to diversify suppliers, while 48% are expanding nearshoring and regional sourcing. 46% are investing in better forecasting and demand planning, and 38% are improving their digital supply chain visibility.
The survey also drew a distinction between two resilience postures: adaptability, which allows a business to respond as disruptions unfold in real time, and the longer-term structural changes that reduce exposure before a disruption begins. Adaptability allows a business to effectively respond to a disruption as issues are occurring in real time, the survey noted, framing it as one component of a broader resilience strategy rather than a substitute for it.
Broader Context: What Other Research Shows
The Supply Technologies findings land against a backdrop of sustained resilience investment across global manufacturing. McKinsey's annual survey of global supply chain leaders, which has tracked risk management and resilience measures for six years, offers a useful comparison point.
In an earlier wave of that research, 83% of supply chain leaders said footprint resilience measures minimized disruption impact in 2022. 97% of respondents reported applying some combination of inventory increases, dual sourcing, and regionalization to boost resilience, a near-universal adoption of the same tools the Supply Technologies survey respondents are now reaching for again.
More recent McKinsey data shows the investment continuing. 73% of survey respondents reported progress on dual-sourcing strategies, and companies are now reaping the benefits of the strategic resilience projects they have implemented over the past three years. On the geographic side, 43% of respondents said they are planning to shift more of their supply chain footprint to the United States over the next three years, a figure McKinsey noted was a 25-percentage-point increase from the prior year's survey.
Taken together, the research suggests that manufacturers have been building resilience capacity for several years and believe it is working, yet a substantial majority still expect to face a serious disruption in the near term.
What Manufacturers Should Watch
The gap between investment and confidence is worth examining closely. Adding inventory, diversifying suppliers, or shifting sourcing closer to home are real steps. But those steps do not automatically translate into the ability to detect a disruption early, route around it quickly, or communicate its impact to customers and partners in time to matter.
One question the survey raises is whether the resilience measures in place are visible enough to be useful under pressure. Increasing inventory provides a buffer, but only if someone can see current stock levels, committed orders, and inbound supply status in one place when a disruption hits. Supplier diversification reduces single-source dependency, but only if the alternate supplier's capacity, lead times, and quality status are known before the crisis, not discovered during it.
A second question is whether planning and forecasting investments are connected to the sourcing and inventory decisions they are meant to inform. 46% of respondents said they are investing in better forecasting and demand planning, yet only 38% are improving their digital supply chain visibility. For a manufacturer whose planning system and supplier data live in separate places, better forecasts may not reach the people making sourcing and inventory calls in time to change the outcome.
Manufacturers reviewing their own readiness might ask: Which suppliers represent a single point of failure today, and is that known before a disruption forces the question? Are inventory buffers sized against current demand signals or against older assumptions? Does the team responsible for responding to a disruption have access to the records they need, or does the response depend on phone calls and spreadsheets assembled under pressure? Those are not abstract planning questions. They are the practical difference between a resilience investment that holds and one that looks adequate until it is tested.
