Consequences of a supply chain Failure!

Welcome readers, This is Aswath A C from Amrita School of Business, Coimbatore. 

No one could forget the struggle of Indian freedom fighters against the British colonialism. One notable group during this era is Indian National Army popularly known as the INA. With more than 40000 soldiers who were part of British army surrendered to Japanese troops in Singapore. Mohan Singh formed the Indian National Army, with the captured Indian soldiers with the support of the Japan to overthrow the rule of British in India. The world’s first woman infantry regiment, known as the Rani of Jhansi regiment was also formed.

In 1944, they planned to enter India through the forests of Burma and enter Assam territory of India. The soldiers attacked fiercely and captured two posts of British army in Burma. The real problem of supplying them with the required products including food, ammunition, medicines became a serious problem after this.

Their supply chain was designed in such a way that the supplies enter through the port of Rangoon (1) into Burma, and then moved north to the city of Mandalay (2), then reaching the Japanese air base Myitkynia (3), which is north to the Mandalay. The movement of supply till Mandalay was not a problem, but forwarding the supplies from there was very difficult due to mountainous terrain after that. 

But, on the other hand British army went back to fortified bases and had got enough supplies through the available British and American air cargo planes. The monsoon started in May, became a big headache for the Japanese troops as the roads, terrain became even more difficult to transport the supplies. 

The Japanese base was attacked by the allied forces, which created more demand for the supplies in the base. This put a large pressure on the troops that were waiting for supplies from the Japanese bases. The soldiers almost ran out of ammunition, food, fuel and also they were dying of severe wound and poisonous insects due to the rain. The remaining of the troops was forced to retreat.

 They had lost the war mainly because of their strategy and supply chain design, not because of their opponents.

This case is yet another good example of importance of supply chain and design it such a way that it is agile, to know more about this war do watch “The Forgotten Army: Azaadi ke liye” in Amazon Prime video.