Supply chain management involves the development of products, sourcing of materials, logistics, and production of quality goods. Supply chain management also helps to identify the supply shortage in procurement.
Efficient and well-designed supply chain management software will manage the supply chain management and supply shortage in procurement and take care of supply chain shortages.
The post-COVID-19 era is continuously disrupting the ecosystem of the supply chain. The primary supply chain issues that have been affecting globally are:
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Scarcity of raw materials and parts
Since the pandemic’s beginning, insufficient inputs have been a significant issue creating a supply shortage in procurement. This took place due to a sudden rise in consumer demands. To date, both suppliers and manufacturers are struggling to fulfill the need in the middle of the scarce availability for several parts and raw materials.
Increase in Transportation Cost
With the lockdown protocols during the pandemic, there has been a massive demand for eCommerce business. To this, there has been a greater demand for raw materials to get imported and manufactured consumer goods.
A large percentage of this entire movement of materials and finished goods involves shipping transportation. Since the demand was much higher than expected, the whole circle has insufficient shipping capacity. It has also faced unavailability of shipping containers and sometimes unprecedented shortage.
Forecasting Demands is Difficult
In the middle of the global pandemic, demand forecasting has been one of the significant issues in the supply chain. Unfortunately, the beginning of Covid-19 initially exhausted the forecast for a considerable number of suppliers and retailers of consumer goods and services.
They had no idea as to how much manufacturing or inventory to stock was required at any given point in time. The issue then came from improving the demands for consumer demand, and in some cases, the challenge was to rely on gut power rather than conduct data-driven research.
Congestion at Ports
Another major issue that impacted the supply chain due to the pandemic was port congestion. The entire world has seen carriers, port owners, and shippers together are still trying to find a proper solution to the problem.
Congestion typically happens when a shipment arrives at any port, but it cannot load or unload as the port is already at capacity.
Though the unloading and loading process follows a typical plan, the shortage of laborers and the protocol of social distancing have been one of the significant issues that have steered things off the course and created huge bottlenecks at several busy docks.
Changing in the Attitudes of the Consumers
The change in consumer behavior is another major issue in the supply chain. And the pandemic situation has witnessed several significant changes in the consumers’ approaches.
This varied from fast delivery of goods to positive customer reviews. The pandemic situation also took the eCommerce business to its peak. Though the rise in demand was a plus point for the companies, the need for new infrastructural requirements with supply shortages in procurement were significant issues and matters of concern.
To Conclude
Supply chain management is the process through which all the supply chain activities are managed so that companies can have an added advantage over their competitor, beating supply shortages in procurement.
Supply chain management also expands the value of the customers. In short, supply chain management characterizes the efforts through which it can help develop and manage supply chain activities.