Beckway Insights: A Strategic Approach to Navigating Disruptions in Manufacturing
In the dynamic landscape of manufacturing, unforeseen disruptions such as strikes, can send ripples through supply chains. Here are key considerations to help your business stay resilient during work stoppage:
Stockpile Inventory Carefully
- Demand Forecasting: Leverage advanced analytics to anticipate product demands, ensuring you have the right balance between potential shortage and surplus. Work with your customers to see how they expect their requirements to change during the strike period and input this data into your demand plan.
- Ensure Adequate and Balanced Storage: Evaluate your storage capabilities. While maintaining a buffer stock is crucial, excessive inventory resulting from an elongated strike can escalate holding costs and risk obsolescence.
Scenario Planning
- Short-term vs. Long-term Impacts: Distinguish between immediate repercussions (increased demand immediately prior to a strike, for example) and potential extended effects (obsolescence due to excessive Inventory, for example). Devise strategies for both scenarios.
- Diverse Outcomes: Anticipate varying durations and intensities of disruptions, and craft responses accordingly.
- Regular Reviews: Actively monitor unfolding events and adjust your strategies in real-time. Stay informed and remain agile in your approach.
Vendor Management
- Stay in close contact with vendors and inform them you may need to delay orders; what is key is to communicate the direct cause and longer-term consumption is unlikely to change.
Strategic inventory management and foresightful planning are paramount when key customers are grappling with strikes. For more information, contact Beckway’s Supply Chain practice lead, Aman Sapra, at asapra@beckway.com.