The Challenges of Accessing and Transporting PPE During COVID-19

At the root of the short supply of PPE for hospitals are several factors. Distributors don't have inventory, and hospitals don't have the relationships in place to buy directly from manufacturers. Making matters more difficult, many vendors are requiring down payments of 50% or more.

The challenges on the transport side are also serious. Half of global airfreight normally travels in the bellies of passenger planes that are now mostly not flying, creating its own unique set of issues. And once on the ground, it's hard to accurately track hospital inventories to know where PPE is needed most.

Perhaps most daunting are the requirements of navigating customs on both the export and import sides and complying with the unique regulations for medical devices.

As Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen noted in his recent blog, international freight forwarders and customs brokerages have hundreds of thousands of employees working to scale trade compliance to allow all PPE to clear international borders around the world. But, onboarding the volume of suppliers is a laborious process.

Government agencies that regulate the import of PPE understand the desperate need for these items. Customs authorities are making efforts to release shipments as quickly as possible, especially for companies that can show evidence they have started required processes in a timely manner.

“The earlier you start your compliance process and the better documented it is, the more cooperative customs authorities tend to be,” said Gould.

Kathleen Hegyesi, Program Manager at Flexport.org - the social and environmental impact team of Flexport - will elaborate on building relationships with Customs during a crisis when she joins the sustainability panel at this year’s USC Global Supply Chain Summit in the fall.

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