According to data reported in the SupplyShift platform, suppliers’ perspectives concerning the effect of COVID-19 on the supply chain are trending in a positive direction. Of the companies surveyed since March, 43 percent reported that they were running at 81-100 percent of capacity, the report stated on Tuesday.
In addition, 14 percent of respondents have reported that they were operating at more than 100 percent of capacity. Employee availability remained relatively high throughout the period, with 68 percent of respondents reporting employee availability of 90 percent or higher.
For companies that did report lowered capacity, the three main reasons cited were government-mandated shutdown, reduced demand and supply chain disruptions from their own suppliers. Over half expect the main impacts of disruption to continue decreasing over time. The report noted that as the public and private sectors begin to understand the implications of COVID-19 on the supply chain, companies will shift their focus toward operational recovery.
"As we navigate the business challenges of COVID-19, the conversation has transitioned from risk mitigation to recovery," observed Alex Gershenson, CEO of SupplyShift. "Our collaboration with Moody's Analytics and Verisk Maplecroft brings powerful enhancements to our solution. We hope these tools will continue to aid the business community as they work to secure their supply chains."
Tom Reynolds, a global supply chain practice consultant, has also commented on the effects of COVID-19 on the global supply chain. He noted that increased globalization and the prevalence of e-commerce have led businesses to count on customers spread all around the world, unlike the previous norm of a more localized and homogenous group of end consumers.
The participation has made supply chains vastly more complex, and supply chain officers point out the need to develop capabilities to handle that complexity seamlessly even during times of distress.
“There’s an increased demand within companies to make their supply chains more flexible and dynamic,” said Reynolds. “This is challenging for supply chain leaders, as sourcing from multiple places would bring in a lot more complexities on the inbound side.”
Potomac Officers Club will host its Supply Chain Resilience and COVID-19 Virtual Event on June 11th. Click here to register for the event.
John Polowczyk, Vice director for Logistics, J4 with the Joint Chiefs of Staff will speak at the virtual event. He will address the unprecedented global demand surge in personal protective equipment to supply-side challenges amid the COVID-19 outbreak.
Polowczyk will be joined by Dave Kless, executive director of Operations at the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) and Stuart Jones, director of Supply Chain Management at LMI to further discuss the implications inherent with the global pandemic.
Register here to join Potomac Officers Club for its Supply Chain Resilience and COVID-19 Virtual Event on June 11th to learn about the speakers’ perspectives on the state of public-private collaboration and how coordination at the strategic and tactical levels can strengthen supply chain response to future challenges.
