Why To Prepare A Supply Chain for Natural Disaster
June 4th, 2018
For most of us, the summer of 2017 was a bit of a let down on the weather front. But for others, it showed them why they need to prepare their supply chains for disaster.
They are fading into memory now, but no one who lived through them will forget the impact of 2017’s Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Hurricanes Irma and Maria in Florida. Many of those affected, including customers of ours, are still trying to get their lives back to normal.
While they don’t compare in importance to human life and suffering, supply chains are crucial to the life of a business and are often leveraged for the delivery of relief supplies to affected areas.
The Consequences of Natural Disaster Interruptions to Supply Chains
Companies with the right systems in place to optimize their supply chains have the luxury of business intelligence to anticipate many man-made shifts and interruptions to the chain.
But a natural disaster strikes relatively unexpectedly and can put a fatal strain on any unprepared supply chain.
Supply Interruption
With variables like the impossible-to-predict path of a hurricane, your supply chain can be suddenly and unexpectedly interrupted.
Loss of Sales
Supply interruption can mean lost sales and customers.
Lack of Sourcing Alternatives
The worst time to replace links in your supply chain is when everyone in your industry is doing the same.
Prepare a Supply Chain for Disaster
There is no way to be fully prepared for interruptions to your operation or your supply chain during a natural disaster.
But having a plan will at least mitigate the effect of any interruption. A supply chain disaster preparation plan will involve at least two types of action.
The first type of actions is those focused on reducing risk. This requires a deep understanding of your supply chain and the flow of goods through it. That knowledge can show you links in the chain that may be more susceptible to interruptions, like suppliers in locations that experience more hurricanes than others.
Armed with that knowledge. Buyers can take the precaution of having options for those links in place and active before disasters hit so that when they do. Supply tracks can be changed to the ones that are still open.
The second type of actions is those related to how a company responds to a supply chain interruption when it happens. That means knowing what steps you will take to mitigate the interruption when it does occur.
Both types of disaster preparation actions mean having accurate supply chain intelligence. You need in-depth visibility to know exactly where in the supply chain action will most likely be needed. Visibility you can get from the AdvancePro suite of solutions.
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