Signing off
In the April 2021 issue, Stephen Paul Hardy voiced understanding and support for the challenges facing manufacturers caught up in the hassles of supply chain disruption. Things, it seems, are still clunky and far from smooth running.
Stephen Paul Hardy contemplates the current supply delivery situation.
Despite the political pretence that a semblance of normality returned to England on 19th July, the worldwide reality is still far from what was ‘normal' prior to the onset of the pandemic. Repercussive effects of the past 18 months still continue to be felt in so many ways - not least of which in manufacturing industry supply chains.
A recent email from OttOmobile put the matter sharply in focus. It explained “The situation is still complicated. In parallel to the restrictions imposed by the Covid pandemic, world trade has jumped by 10%.There are shortages of materials and components in all areas.”The explanation continued “To reassure everyone, our factory has stabilised production and adapted to the unexpected effects of the pandemic.The models are coming off the production lines normally and that's good news. Of course it would have been too easy if everything had gone back to normal, but there are no longer any boats to transport our goods to France. Apart from the fact that the price of shipping has increased by a factor of six and is expected to increase by a factor of 10 by September, there is no room on the ships and we have to wait several weeks to load our containers. It seems that in the port near our factory, there are 700,000 containers. According to Kuehne+Nagel, the company we work with, we have until March 2022 before it's back to normal.”
This is far from a one-off, with many similar anecdotal insights currently circulating.Another manufacturer very recently gave me insights into the challenges of quality control and of maintaining relationships with its factory in the Far East, in the face of having been unable to visit in person now for nearly two years.Yes email, fax, phone calls and Zoom, et al, are no substitute for personal face-to-face discussions when it comes to keeping things running smoothly.
It won't be long now before we start to see press releases detailing what manufacturers are hoping to release for 2022 and, yet, I sense the return to normal is optimistic - by probably six months (or, put another way, this time next year!). DC