A strong supply chain has always been important in the world of business. However, since the start of the pandemic, when the world officially turned upside-down, supply chain resilience has become more important than ever before. This is true not only for a business’s success but for its survival. What does resilience mean in regard to integrated logistics? How can you determine the possible exposure throughout the logistics process and what tools and strategies should you use to establish and maintain resilience? Keep reading to learn more.
Supply Chain Resilience
Businesses in all sectors rely on supply chains. In fact, they’re the very foundation of their operations. From getting the supplies they need to stock and develop products, to shipping out the items that they make to consumers. Individual sectors, including buyers, sellers, suppliers, producers, retailers, shippers, and consumers all make up the global supply chain. All of those sectors interweave and rely on one another to ensure that everything flows smoothly. In order to make sure that the chain functions properly, carefully balancing supply and demand is crucial.
How to Maintain A Balanced Supply Chain
What factors are involved with successfully maintaining a balanced supply chain? Factors include keeping costs low, timings firm, inventories down, and consumer satisfaction high. The challenge with this, however, is that when any of those factors are disrupted, the impact on the entire supply chain can be severe. The best example of this in recent history is the blockage in the Suez Canal. During the summer of 2021, a container ship got lodged in the canal, causing a blockage that held up about 12 percent of the goods that pass through it every single day. A report issued by McKinsey revealed that supply chain disruptions that last a week or two can occur every 2 years, while disruptions that last for a month or more are anticipated to return approximately every 3.7 years.
Why is Supply Chain Resilience Important?
With this kind of environment, resilience is essential; not only for a business’s success but for its survival. What does resilience in the business world mean? Resilience is a business’ ability to modify supply change strategies, technologies, and products and adapting to structural changes. When these key traits are integrated with a strategy for managing a supply chain, business owners can either completely avoid disruptions, or if disruptions do occur, they can cope with them quickly and effectively.
How can you build a resilient supply chain?
There are a few things that you can do, starting with diversifying resources. A lot of businesses rely on a single point for most or all of the vital aspects of their supply portfolios. However, if one point fails, the entire supply chain system will fail. In order to keep disruptions to a minimum, diversifying resources is a must. By doing so, if one part of the system falls, your entire supply chain system won’t collapse. Building reserves is another way that you can balance your supply chain. Safety stock calculations and inventory optimizations often overlook fundamental risk. Carrying demand safety stocks will help to eliminate single points of failure; particularly in regard to low-volume parts of the supply chain. Additional Reading: How to build more secure, resilient, next-gen U.S. supply chains
The Junction LLC | Truckload Shipping
As a leader in the transportation industry, we demand excellence from our entire team. Our team at The Junction LLC strives to deliver the best possible customer service and by a desire to solve our customer’s toughest transportation and supply chain needs.
Our team is dedicated to serving our customers and will take the necessary action to deliver our customers’ products safely, efficiently, and on time. In fact, this is our promise to you!
Nationwide Services include:
- FTL (Full Truck Load) Shipping
- LTL (Less Than Truck Load) Shipping
- Transportation of refrigerated, dry, and bulk shipments
- 3PL Warehousing and Logistics
- Contract Warehousing
- Trucking Freight Brokerage
Trucking & Freight Shipping Services:
- Overweight,
- Over-dimension
- Time-sensitive shipments
- LTL (Less-Than-Truckload)
- FTL (Full Truckload)
- Flatbed
- Flatbed LTLRGN (removable gooseneck lowboy)
- RGN (removable gooseneck lowboy)
- Maxi’s / A-Train / B-Train
- Heavy Haul
- Over Dimensional
- Dry Van
- Dry Van LTL
- Refrigerated
- Refrigerated LTL
- Power Only
Additional Services:
- Our sister companies can also provide warehousing in our food-grade facilities, cross-docking, and contract warehousing.