Supply Chain Fundamental Rethinking

As Covid - 19 impact on Supply Chain evolves, Supply Chain practitioners are figuring it out for themselves that its "Relationships" which are keeping the flow upright.The unprecedented disruption which has been caused & we are still not out of the woods as yet, has seen dramatic changes to Supply Chains.  Initial fury to stock up was followed by some sudden brakes which now is evolving into a demand pattern with some increased clarity into a more visible action plan. In all this journey of the past few months, the Supply Chain Practitioner in the industry came to grasp a reality which always stayed but was opaque for a while - It's the "Supply Chain Relationships" which will tide you over. I have been a practitioner who has been surrounded by Senior Management professionals of the industry who, over the past few years, have been crystal clear that its the "Technology" which will drive the Supply Chain of future. With AI/ML/RPA/IOT and ...

Supply Chains have experienced the Wave 1 (http://blog.think-spark.com/2020/04/wave-effect-of-covid-19-on-supply-chain.html )& Wave 2 (http://blog.think-spark.com/2020/04/wave-effect-of-covid-19-on-supply-chain_14.html) impact of Covid-19. The delayed impacts of various nodes of Supply Chains leading into next waves of impact will commence here onward. Futuristic statements dampening the negative ramification of the event probably will be vociferously communicated with balancing pessimistic outlook statements. In my opinion making any forecasts can only make astrology be a respectable profession. Hence let those be made by the people who have to live off those professions. We are in the middle of Wave 3 & Supply Chain professionals need to only model the events which have occurred so far & navigate the Supply Chain going forward. The importance of being able to connect the various events into a logical analysis will be the key for most of the Supply Chain Professi...

Covid - 19 first wave effect which sparked with China, being the factory of the world, created a disruption for many Supply Chains.(http://blog.think-spark.com/2020/04/wave-effect-of-covid-19-on-supply-chain.html). Wave 1 effect has now evolved into Wave 2 effect. China is back full steam & many Chinese enterprises have commenced manufacturing operations. It has offered the rest of world a ray of hope to define timelines to bounce-back from the Covid-19 disruption. That is a great news. Once the manufacturing operations commence, Chinese suppliers & in turn their customer organizations may breathe a sigh of relief. How long will it last is the question? In the Wave 2 of the effect of Covd-19 on Supply Chains, at some stage the Chinese suppliers will face a couple challenges.  a) Their customers rolling plans for purchase will get differed. This shall happen due to the cascading effect which started with Wave 1. The short term demand side activity of the buying ...

It was February 2020 and companies were figuring out what was Covid 19. All that Supply Chain practitioners were able to decode was that their suppliers in China had suspended operations for a while due to a novel virus which had spread in the country. At that point in time, the rest of the world was producing and customers buying. And that was good news. The bad news was Supply constraints were envisaged to be the bottleneck to run the business, as usual.  Naturally there was a frenzy of an activity to get material from China. Panic buttons were pressed, predominantly by the Senior Management driven through the lenses of loss of business in absence of material, so additional quantity of purchases were approved as well as premiums were paid for logistics arrangements. Purchase Managers were working overnight, cajoling their China suppliers, figuring out how to get the inland transportation organized within China and a lot of work went into ensuring that the goods leave the sh...