Philips Albuquerque Fire
Philips Albuquerque Fire broke out on March 17, 2000, after lightning caused a power surge at a Philips semiconductor plant in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and smoke contaminated clean rooms that made chips for Nokia and Ericsson.
What happened and why it matters
The fire is a standard case on supply chain risk because two customers of the same supplier had very different outcomes. Philips first expected a short disruption, but cleanup took months. Nokia spotted the problem quickly, escalated it, secured capacity from other Philips plants and redesigned parts so other suppliers could help, and it kept producing phones. Ericsson, more dependent on that single source and slower to react, faced a shortfall of millions of phones and in 2001 moved its handset business into a joint venture with Sony. The lessons still apply: know your single points of failure, watch supplier signals and keep alternate sources ready.