The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the thought leader as an individual, and are not attributed to CeFPro or any particular organization.
By Brendon Hill, Global Head of Aerospace, BSI
What have you seen as some of the key impacts of Covid-19 on global supply chains?
Supply chains have faced turmoil over the last 18 months or so. Suppliers have had to stop work due to covid and possibly government restrictions, they have lost staff either through redundancy (due to downturn in volumes) or sadly, illness. The latter affects many aspects of an organisation; capacity, organizational knowledge, resilience, and also brings in human factors (“the dirty dozen”) that can affect not only capacity but product conformity and safety. This has led to primes and tier 1 organisations finding out that their supply chains are longer/deeper/broader than they thought; they lacked visibility of the whole.
Suppliers have struggled to balance demand and capacity, maintaining an effective workforce and meeting ever-changing customer demand, and keeping afloat; maintaining financial security and viability. Some have done better than others. This means that the risk profile for many has changed. How might you revise your criteria for supplier approval in this changed context? What risks have you considered and how effective has your mitigation been? What will you do in future regarding supply chain resilience? I think many organizations higher in the chain, primes and tier 1s, will need to look at supply chains in a different way, to see them as part of their own value stream and manage them accordingly, with much better collaboration sharing of information, plans, predicted workloads, and also risk sharing and contingency planning.
