The automaker Ford was forced to halt production of 60 000-70 000 mostly built F-150 pickups that it could not complete[1].Its competitor General Motors removed features from some new models and shut down many of its plants for weeks and even months[2,3].Apple announced that it was cutting iPhone produc-tion by more than 10%[4].For some Canadian customers,the wait for new refrigerators and other appliances stretched to a year or more[5].