As I write this, the coronavirus is still spreading and parts of the country are under varying business restrictions. Some places are still operating near normally, but other places are under severe restrictions, hopefully to keep people from contracting and spreading the COVID-19 disease.
Today’s blog post comes from Abe Eshkenazi, the CEO of the Association for Supply Chain Management who has a lot to say about the supply chain disruptions we are all facing today.
As I am writing this, there has been a steady stream of updates on the COVID-19 coronavirus and its spread throughout the world. There have been quite a few disruptions already with travel and exhibitions cancelled, and people being quarantined around the world. But what effect does this have on a medium size business that either makes product deliveries or has service technicians making visits on a daily basis? And what can be done in the longer term to reduce the costs incurred by last minute routing and scheduling changes?
Any manufacturing process depends on raw materials and the output of other manufacturing processes. What glues this together is transportation. Transportation can be as mundane as moving a subassembly across a building as or as complex as moving a part from the Far East via ship. Things can wrong. And plans are needed in case this happens.