New Year with New Ways to Manage Supply Chain Challenges

Editor’s note: Mark Dohnalek is President & CEO of Pivot International, the Kansas-based global product development, engineering & manufacturing firm.

As 2021 nears a close, the supply chain continues to be in crisis with nearly 100 ships backed up and waiting to unload. With an ongoing labor shortage in dock workers and truckers, every potential solution creates new types of obstacles.

Customers are frustrated, but so are we. Our industry of manufacturers and supply chain professionals has been horrified by the situation that has interrupted design, production, and delivery schedules, impacting our bottom line, planning, and growth. In addition to port congestion, we are facing a series of shortages in chips, containers, labor, and transport equipment.

It hasn’t been easy to navigate these rough waters, and while we can expect the challenges to last for a long time to come—below are a few of the ways we can buffer the impact to keep our supply chains moving forward.

Redesign and Reconfigure. It may not happen overnight, but it is still possible to bring new products to market by finding alternative components during the chip shortage. Design workarounds can only be successfully achieved by forcing teams to develop novel solutions to stubborn design and engineering challenges. Seek and invest in external players with proven advanced engineering and technical experience.

While this will likely increase your budget in talent and testing – it will be necessary to turn your innovative ideas into reality with fresh ways to reconfigure product parameters. If you can source alternative components that are every bit as safe and effective as those initially intended for a design, then you have the chance to keep moving forward.

Don’t be surprised if, like us, you will be able to save as many as 30%-50% of your products by designing a new engineering workaround.

Charter Option. This won’t always be possible but if you can do this it has the potential to make a big difference. Now we know even some charters will be caught in “containergeddon,” but you have a chance to overcome it with a private charter. But for small and mid-size companies, charter costs prove prohibitive, making it that much more important to enlist the help of a partner experienced in crisis management.

Domestic Partners with Global Reach. A U.S.-based partner with established global operations in sourcing and manufacturing won’t be immune to challenges, but they can offer greater supply chain visibility, predictability, and control. Here’s why. They will have historical context to assist in their present-day decision-making to keep you ahead of what is coming next. They will also bring quality control in their operations and established relationships that will provide you with vetted sourcing options. A domestic partner will have a boots-on-the-ground approach that can’t be secured with an overseas partner.

We are entering a New Year with unprecedented supply chain challenges. With a purposeful approach that bridges creative thinking, engineering and technical wherewithal and quality control, it can be the difference between a business’s success and failure. Good luck!

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