Fear and anxiety have been commonplace in supply chain operations in recent years. And not without good reason. Disruption after disruption has slowed the supply chain to a crawl, leaving BCOs and LSPs to scramble for solutions. In 2024, supply chains have been under stress — but they aren’t breaking.
The reason is that supply chains have started adapting to disruption. That’s not to say that any disruption can be easily sidestepped in the modern age. But it is to say that supply chain participants have become much better at proactively planning for disruptions so that they can take decisive, confident action when they strike.
This week’s look at headlines from around the supply chain and logistics space examines both sides of the coin — the challenges facing the supply chain and the solutions BCOs and LSPs are preparing and implementing against those challenges. Continue reading to learn more, and get in touch with us if you’re searching for a single-source-of-truth platform as your tech solution for navigating supply chain disruption.
The Manufacturing Industry Responds to Disruption
Manufacturers are adjusting to supply chain disruptions by ramping up operations earlier than normal to meet holiday demand. According to a product manager at Plex by Rockwell Automation, moving a production schedule up requires:
- Effective supply chain leadership
- Accurate demand forecasting
- Overcoming internal and external challenges
- Meticulous scheduling and planning
- Resolving internal discrepancies
These factors help manufacturers create operational efficiency, but it’s not always easy to forecast holiday sales. For example, inflation concerns and an uncertain global economic landscape made some pessimistic about the 2023 holiday season. But, ultimately, last year’s holiday sales ended up breaking records. This year, manufacturers are embracing the earlier production schedule to “mitigate risks while leaving time to adjust to market shifts.”
How Red Sea Missile Attacks Impact Holiday Retail
The missile attacks in the Red Sea have become well-known across the global supply chain. These attacks are forcing maritime carriers to choose longer, alternative routes, leading in turn to higher shipping prices and longer lead times. Now, this crisis in the Red Sea is forcing retailers to rethink how they’re approaching the holiday season.
According to INVERTO, the supply chain management arm of Boston Consulting Group, supply chains remain “brittle,” even though retailers have been working to move products earlier in the year to ensure full shelves during the holiday season. Retailers don’t always have the warehouse space needed to house this incoming inventory, requiring them to seek costly short-term storage space. Needless to say, consumers are likely to bear the brunt of these higher costs when they start their shopping for the holiday season.
With more and more retail moving online, firming up supply chain operations and limiting out-of-stock alerts is important to creating outstanding customer experiences throughout the holidays.
Hurricane Season’s Not Quite Over Yet
Hurricane season has been relatively quiet so far, but there’s still a chance that storms will create supply chain chaos in the coming weeks. The good news is that modern technology and a greater awareness of being unprepared for storms have allowed supply chain managers to more effectively track the progress of storms and identify the most at-risk shipments.
Just this week, Hurricane Francine made landfall in Louisiana as a Category 1 storm, reinforcing the ongoing danger in and around the Caribbean. Supply chain managers should remain aware of storms forming in the coming weeks and be proactive in planning should hurricanes strike.
Drought Shifts From Panama to the Mississippi River
Drought conditions have made it more difficult for ships to pass through the Panama Canal in recent years, and now drought conditions are creating similar issues along the Mississippi River.
The Mississippi is not as important to global trade as the Panama Canal. Still, it is an important waterway for crops moving from the heartland of American agriculture to markets around the world. The Mississippi River is also an important passageway for energy and steel supplies moving to global markets. The drought conditions have caused barge rates to skyrocket.
Smaller disruptions sometimes remain under the radar in the news, but they can have profound implications for the specific industries affected.
Visibility is the Core Solution to Supply Chain Disruption
For all the disruptions and risks mentioned above, visibility is most often recommended as the solution. With tech-enabled visibility in place, organizations are able to access real-time data about the movements of their goods and products around the world. This level of visibility allows them to be proactive in making decisions and plans should disruptions emerge — whether labor stoppages, weather events, geopolitical issues, or something else unexpected.
The Digital Container Shipping Association (DCSA) is on record as recommending visibility as essential for stakeholders in the shipment of goods. The DCSA says that a lack of visibility means that stakeholders “lack control and are limited in what they can do to mitigate shipping disruption and its impact.”
Step Into the Future of Supply Chain Management
The visibility recommended by the DCSA is available through Cargologik — your all-in-one platform for supply chain orchestration and collaboration. Our solution allows for everything from visibility to document management so that your organization always enjoys access to a single source of truth for supply chain operations.
If you’re ready to eliminate fragmentation and step into the future of supply chain management, make sure you have modern technology like Cargologik on your side. Get started now.
