The spiraling human impact of the COVID-19 virus has many of us rethinking our personal exposure to proper hygiene and to examine our travel plans into potential “hot zones”. For Supply Chain professionals, it is a time to examine how our supply chains have fared with the disruption caused by COVID-19 and to potentially revamp our underlying Supply Chain Management practices.
While “Black Swan” events such as COVID-19 might be dismissed as rare, lessons we have learnt from previous “Black Swan” events such as 9/11, SARS, Eyiafjallajokull, Asian tsunamis and earthquakes, have desensitized many of us in building robust supply chains. We continue to pursue single-source procurement strategies, consolidate distribution centers, outsource logistics, even though such actions build more risk into the supply chain. We have yet to embrace the resilient supply chain, one that has continuous improvement as one of its core principles and one that is dynamically restructuring itself at breakneck speed in times of need.
The impact of the spread of the COVID-19 virus will keep stressing our long, thin, Tier-one-supplier focused chains. We need supply chain professionals that understand visibilty, nimbleness and, above all, resilience.
What are you doing to keep your supply chain resilient?