In the supply chain literature, such strategies as standard and modular design (embraced in postponement to reduce interactive complexity) are often considered to reduce the inventory or capacity levels (resulting in high tight coupling). This raises the issue of the interaction between coupling and interactive complexity, which has been introduced in NAT. Here we examine two commonly discussed supply chain risk mitigation strategies – adding redundancy and building flexibility. Reducing the tight coupling to protect a system against disruptions may involve adding slack or buffers. While recognising the added costs associated with providing additional capacity and resources, the supply chain management literature ignores the potential resultant increase in the complexity. Adding redundancy may induce the high level of interactive complexity by increasing the number of potential interactions between parts of the systems (Sagan 1993). Excess resources also provide false security into the safety of a system, and small problems or failures thus become less visible. Similarly, the supply chain management literature also acknowledges that flexibility comes at a cost and is not necessary in all cases (Manuj and Mentzer 2008). However, increasing flexibility is also likely to exacerbate the complexity of the system (Marley 2006). In a flexible system, process flows become more complicated, adding ambiguity to the pathways for products to travel as flexibility results in multiple options for decision variables. It can be expected that adding redundancy and building flexibility may increase complexity to a point that will increase the supply chain risk exposure.