The Ministry of Defence has run a large-scale simulation exercise with five major defence suppliers to examine how UK military supply chains perform under sustained demand shocks. Boeing, KNDS, MBDA, Rheinmetall and Tekever joined senior officials in a war-game designed to identify bottlenecks and system constraints before they emerge in real operations.

Framed as a stress test of supply chain resilience, the exercise explored how production, logistics and procurement systems respond when demand for critical equipment must surge over an extended period. The aim is not only to assess capacity, but to understand where coordination, timing and resource allocation decisions begin to break down under pressure.

For practitioners in Operational Research, the scenario reflects a familiar class of problems: modelling complex, interdependent systems under uncertainty, where resilience matters as much as efficiency. Simulation, optimisation and systems thinking all play a role in anticipating failure points and improving response strategies.

Insights from the exercise will feed directly into the UK’s Strategic Defence Review and Defence Industrial Strategy, both of which place increasing emphasis on supply chain resilience, broader supplier networks and the ability to scale output rapidly in a crisis. Alongside a planned £270 billion investment in defence, the work signals a shift towards more structured, model-driven approaches to decision-making in national security contexts.

Defence leaders have highlighted the importance of collaboration across industry, with the exercise forming part of a wider effort to test assumptions, refine planning models and ensure that supply systems can deliver under real-world constraints.

References

https://www.cobseo.org.uk/uk-tests-defence-supply-chains-under-war-conditions-in-major-exercise/

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-tests-defence-supply-chains-under-war-conditions-in-major-exercise