Managing Supply Chain in Emergency Situations

Managing Supply Chain in Emergency Situations: Importance of Logistics Flexibility and Risk Distribution

The supply chain sector is highly dynamic in general, as it is divided by companies providing special equipment, materials, and car parts from all over the globe. The recent epidemic is a typical actual emergency, with properties such as high uncertainty, unexpected events, the risk of catastrophe, a great deal of time constraints and urgency, a severe lack of resources, large-scale impact and harm, and the disruption of infrastructure support essential for coordination, such as energy, communications and information technology (Funnell, 2020). Infrastructure interdependencies, multi-authority personal involvement and vast numbers of personnel involved, conflict of interests, and the high demand for timely information all exacerbate the situation. Each organization must examine its entire supply chain, as well as that of its suppliers, and ensure that it has a backup plan in place for each piece of input/product and each operation center like factories, distribution centers, and delivery points. Planning is both important and realistic, since it is usually possible to predict the manner in which disasters can impact a specific location and the needs that such disasters can produce, depending on the type of crisis (Jefferson, 2020). 

Visualizing Thomas's definition of humanitarian logistics

In reality, logistics should be a key component of every national emergency response plan, as well as individual plans for businesses and key organizations including schools and hospitals in the event of a disaster. In the sense of responding to an emergency, logistics must be closely related to all other organizational activities. Maintaining logistics flexibility is more important than ever before in order to avoid disruptions to critical services. Excess capacity in nondiscretionary commodity categories is steadily being consumed by the demand. In these situations, the best thing to do is ensure that there is enough capacity to dispose of important objects reliably and efficiently (Neights, 2020). 

ResearchGate

One tactic used by retailers is to make vendors ship goods directly to consumers instead of via distribution centers. Orthodox supply chain activities' JIT limitations are no longer sufficient to keep up with the demand. Depending on the size of their product, companies will need to distribute risk more efficiently and have backups in position for first, second, and even third-party insurance and even beyond.

References

• Funnell, A. (2020, November 8). The Just-In-Time supply chain theory has conquered the world — but has it gone too far? ABC Radio National. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-11/supply-chain-just-in-time-theory-coronavirus-may-prompt-rethink/12529506
• Jefferson, F. (2020). Impacting at Risk Communities using AI to optimize the COVID-19 Pandemic Therapeutics Supply Chain. International Supply Chain Technology Journal, 06(09). https://doi.org/10.20545/isctj.v06.i09.02
• Neights, G. (2020, November 8). Seven Ways the Pandemic Has Sped Up Supply Chain Sustainability. Modern Materials Handling. https://www.mhlnews.com/global-supply-chain/article/21147936/seven-ways-the-pandemic-has-sped-up-supply-chain-sustainability