COVID19 Supply Chain Impacts and Resources

03/17/20

Are you looking for more information, resources and support on COVID19?

At APICS Greater Detroit we support local supply chain professionals with the education and information they need to be successful in today’s ever changing world.

In the beginning of the COVID19 pandemic we might have been alone, but now more than ever we can work together to overcome this. The supply chain community is strong and we’re here to support one another!

As a start, read more below including ASCM’s 8 Tactics to Manage the Impact of Coronavirus on Your Supply Chain and the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) COVID19 Resources.

APICS Greater Detroit is proud to be a premier channel partner for ASCM. We’ve summarized below their recently published 8 Tactics to Manage the Impact of Coronavirus on Your Supply chain.

Not too late to take meaningful action. Those companies that were prepared — particularly with digitized supply chains — are of course more likely to fare better. However, it’s not too late to take meaningful action. Your first goal should be to ensure the safety of your people. Follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. Give your workforce a constant, calm, flow of reliable information. Restricted travel policies are a beginning. Also implement screening protocols, increase workforce hygiene standards, and promote telecommuting and other flexible arrangements. Encourage people with preexisting conditions, who are more susceptible to the virus, to self-declare. Then, proactively shift them to remote work.
Identify key suppliers in affected areas. Stay in contact with them hourly and, if necessary, secure alternative sources of supply. If you are in a position to do so — particularly financially — reach out to your partners, understand who their suppliers are and ask how you can help. Accelerating a partner’s time to recovery not only helps them survive the threat, but also ensures your own future success. Work broadly to make a difference for others in fair and reasonable ways.
To ensure liquidity, stop discretionary spending. Without cashflow, you don’t have a business. Gauge your free cashflow through July 2020 at least. Next, calculate and manage your cash conversion cycle, taking into consideration receivables, days of supply plus inventory and days of supply minus payables days. Finally, if you have purchased supply chain disruption insurance, begin to exercise that policy as needed.
Depending on your business, some demand will shift to online channels. Maintain an integrated view of inventory, and segment or separate inventory for online versus retail. Ensure you have the capacity to handle the volume coming into your distribution centers, as well as last-mile capacity.
Digitization is key to efficiency, collaboration and synchronization. To orchestrate your extended supply chain, use emerging technologies including the internet of things, artificial intelligence and machine learning. Digital supply networks help buffer risk with far less overhead. In addition, once your supply chain is digitally modeled, you can run discrete event simulation to see how your network reacts to certain stimuli.
Subscribe to a digital alert system. This software-as-a-service scans the world every 30 minutes looking for all types of risk events.
Keep in mind that we will eventually recover. To prepare for the rebound, communication and collaboration will once again be vital. As supply chains restart, everyone must be on the same page, especially with regards to what to produce first. Set priorities, and work as quickly as possible to get back in sync.
Continue making supply chain risk management a priority. Develop response plans, particularly for the most impactful risks. Keep monitoring your global networks, and have a playbook in place going forward.

Last week ASCM hosted the webinar on supply chain preparedness in the face of COVID-19 shared on left.

Cosponsored by Supply Chain Canada, the event featured Jim Kilpatrick, global supply chain and network operations leader at Deloitte Consulting; and Gregory Schlegel, CPIM, founder of the Supply Chain Risk Management Consortium.

Risk management experts discussed numerous topics related to the outbreak and its ongoing effects on supply chains around the world. Watch for more detail on some of their key strategies highlighted above.

In addition to ASCM, NAM is in contact with federal officials who are overseeing the response to COVID-19. They have compiled a the following resources for manufacturers as they respond to the pandemic.