Although there are rumblings about the supply chain smoothing out, only the weak will ignore the new normal world of non-stop supply chain disruptions. The supply chain is a system of systems. Thus, for example, although the West Coast ports have caught up after intense focus, shippers transitioning to the East Coast ports, and the spring season of Zero COVID policy shutdowns in China, rail has been backlogged and the East Coast ports are experiencing delays.
Once rail is no longer an issue, the bottleneck could move to trucking or warehouse labor or another supply chain issue. In addition, there are many potential issues that could create new disruptions at any layer of the supply chain. For example, the hurricane in Florida caused transportation delays and manufacturing plants had to shut down temporarily. China has a new wave of Zero COVID policy shutdowns and is threatening Taiwan, the world’s main and vital source of advanced computer chips. And the war rages on with Russia and Ukraine, threatening commodities required to produce electronics and other critical products, just to name a few. The successful will switch from reactionary firefighting to proactive strategies to get ahead of these non-stop disruptions.