SUPPLY CHAIN
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ver the last couple of years, we have experienced our global supply chains being held to ransom by major disruptions, including the pandemic, natural disasters, and geo/political conflicts, that seem to be only increasing their impact. These disruptions are not dissipating and are becoming the new normal. COVID-19 is not our first pandemic and nor will it be our last. Weather patterns across the globe have changed dramatically and are constantly moving. Not only that, but we are also facing major political issues, causing countries to have sanctions thrusted upon them and trade agreements threatened. These disruptions are not targeted at a singular region. Let’s face it, our supply chain/ procurement managers are probably in one of the toughest roles in a business today. One of the big challenges for supply chain now is on 46 INCLEAN May / June 2022
the water, with hundreds of cargo ships at a time waiting to enter some of the world’s largest ports. We are also seeing a lot of the smaller ports becoming impacted, although we do anticipate seeing this clearing soon. Once containers land, the impact keeps moving downstream where we are seeing logistics and the warehouse chain start to fail. A good example of this is in Australia. We are already feeling the squeeze as we saw containers sitting in detention on the docks in late 2021 and in early 2022 due to warehouses being at capacity. Additionally, they have also been heavily impacted by labour shortages, disrupting the cycle of movement in and out of the warehouse and severely delaying the last mile delivery. I have seen a lot of mistakes due to lack of planning and communication throughout the supply chain, with reactive decision making.