When I first moved to California in 1990, I was told by Stanford's campus housing people to keep an earthquake emergency box on hand at all times. Its contents included a radio, flashlights, warm clothes, medical supplies and a few other items. Later in Boston, I stuck with the idea, but added stuff suited to hurricanes, blizzards and extreme cold. After Sept. 11, the kit got still bigger - food, water, fuel, camping supplies, even weapons. It became known as the Anarchy Closet.

Toyota Motor Corp. and Nissan Motor Co. say they'll keep making cars in the U.K. despite Prime Minister Theresa May's plan to leave the European Union's single market, which could make exporting from British factories less lucrative.

The global economy is forecast to grow by 2.7 percent in 2017 after reaching a post-crisis low of 2.3 percent in 2016, according to the World Bank.

It's hard enough managing supply-chain risk within your own organization. But what about controlling the behavior of critical third parties?

Imports at the nation's major retail container ports saw an unexpected increase during the industry's busy holiday season, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released this week by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.