How to recover from a challenge to your supply chain (i.e. pandemic)

In this episode, John and Diana talk about how businesses can remain resilient in the face of a major challenge. While the Covid-19 pandemic has put immense strain on supply chains, bringing the subject to the forefront of a lot of peoples’ minds, this episode looks at supply chain resilience and recovery when faced with challenges in general. While the supply chain will never break, it is constantly faced with disruptions. So how can businesses ensure that their supply chain will be able to face disruptions without being negatively impacted? John uses the example of a strike in a U.S. port, which happens frequently. Manufacturers and retailers depend on port workers being able to offload goods from overseas for shipping in a particular region, and frequently the best source of information has been regional news sources.However, by digitizing supply chain information, supply chain systems can automatically identify where there are points that could become bottlenecks and provide an alert so that the risk is clear and secondary supply options can be made available.Overall, the digital supply chain system needs to be making the decisions, not people. The algorithm should be focused on making sure that the supply chain is operating at the most efficient level without bias. This episode wraps up with some practical information for businesses to become better prepared for the next big disruption. Businesses need to plan for crises, both large or small, ensure availability of information, and create contingency plans that can be enacted swiftly with as little human error as possible.