Retail: "'Get comfortable with days of inventory, not weeks,' Tom Shortt, Home Depot's senior vice president of supply chain, says is the message going out to stores. The retailer is targeting sales growth of nearly 15% by 2018, but wants to keep inventory levels flat or slightly down" [ Wall Street Journal, "Retailers Rethink Inventory Strategies"]. "It is a shift happening across the retail sector as companies try to figure out ways to profitably serve the growing needs of online shoppers while making their network of stores less of a financial burden. Chains must predict whether demand will come from the internet or a store visit, and whether they'll ship online orders from a distribution center or a store. Every move of inventory is an added cost that eats away at already thin margins." That sounds an awful lot like very tight coupling to me. In a crisis, when things correlate and tightly coupled systems crash together, it won't matter a lot that I have to wait to buy a light fixture at Home Depot.