With COVID-19, people underwent a domino-effect of poorly-planned supply chains (SCs). The building-up of stocks involved both home and shopping outlets, while lacking primary products like Personal Protective Equipment (PPE,) were the consequences.
Shortage of PPE and ventilators fast-tracked the pandemic’s dispersion and worsened its risk. The crisis demanded that SCs rapidly adapt to functioning with limited capacity and time to manage the high rocking demand while guaranteeing their forefront workers’ wellbeing.
SC operators learned worthy lessons on coping with the stress of a global pandemic. But with cases going up, leaders’ concern is that the crisis will again beat SCs and deprive us of essential provisions. Luckily, we now recognise the necessary-preventive measures for keeping stability in this global health crisis. However, no doubt COVID-19 different waves are an indicator of significant disruptions still coming up.
Handling the urgent challenges of COVID-19
For SCs, one of the uppermost challenges the pandemic displayed was efficiently supervising a proactive strategy with a fully remote workforce. SCs struggled with synchronising employees who worked from home while warranting the security and health of leading-edge staffs who remained at the facilities.
Safeguarding those workers involve implementing mandatory safety protocols. No doubt, companies well- matured to the challenge of operating under these restrictions. They also came to realise the unquestionable-entire fragility of their SCs; weakness generated by years of persistent pressure to boost SC competences above all.
After years of cost-cutting practices, SCs cannot completely manage the progression of difficulties caused by COVID-19. For example, the Meat industry suffered critical SC disruptions caused by forefront personnel infected with the virus simultaneously, who could no longer drive out their goods, resulting in large product loss and unavoidable scarcity, tackling it even now.
Another example is the double challenge of escalating demands and limited-inventory supply due to increased on-line orders. Several industries save on operations by focusing on empowering SCs with edge-technology plus highly-skilled management approaches to identify disruptions at early stages and work them proactively in an efficient-data-driven practice.
These actions made leaders save time in unnecessary meetings and support them to tackle the source of the problem, resolving issues faster, whilst watching over revenue.
Building up a dynamic SC transformation
· By using SC management platforms.
· A single source of truth to line up staff interaction and workflow centred on real-time action.
· Establish well-defined accountability inside your working party for pinpointing and designating case resolution.
· Sturdy analytics to depict trends and singles out core sources.
The transformation to a dynamic SC won’t take place instantly, but it can also materialise sooner than you think. Structural alignment tends to be the most challenging element. We repeatedly advise to start slightly with a particular place or item, for instance, to perform as a resilient point to build up internal support. Most teams could be running new-dynamic procedures in less a month; it is common to watch different groups’ development within three to six months.
Final comments: our economy and our society stay vulnerable to another potential shock-wave. Investing in the future is vital now to turn SCs challenging with a smart plan of action and edge-technologies; SCs can adapt in real-time to what could happen around us and the global markets.
Are you ready to proactively fortify your Supply Chain to cope with these events?
Dave Food