Over the last few decades, the global market has shifted, making it more difficult for any company to control its manufacturing supply chain. More recent crises such as the pandemic, sociopolitical concerns, labor shortages, and rising costs now threaten to derail company operations if they can’t overcome certain challenges.
Current Issues Hurting Global Supply Chain Operations
Here are some of the main culprits causing the latest manufacturing supply chain issues:
Political Tensions
Political tensions are consistently causing disruptions in the global supply chain. There’s increased tensions between the US and China, as well as the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. These tensions lead to limits on imports and exports, tariffs, and outright embargos that stop all shipping from leaving countries.
Companies in a global marketplace are cognizant of political tensions and often take internal action to mitigate risk. Diversifying manufacturing supply chains is an important challenge facing many companies during times of political tension.
Covid-19 Pandemic
The pandemic may be winding down in many parts of the world, but it still has lasting effects. Many areas still have safety protocols in place to try to limit exposure and the emergence of virus variants. However, these safety precautions make it harder for supply chains to operate.
From stay-at-home mandates to increased scrutiny on transport personnel and vehicles, the result is a slower fulfillment process. In some cases, supply chains are being completely disrupted as quarantines stop companies from exporting their supplies.
These continued mandates have a notable impact on transportation, logistics, manufacturing, and other industries with high concentrations of workers in close contact with each other.
Learning new ways to overcome these limitations is an important part of adapting to limitations that could be around in some form for the foreseeable future.
Unpredictable Transportation Costs
The cost of transportation, mainly shipping and trucking transportation for goods, rose sharply during the pandemic. This was due to many factors, including increased demand, labor shortages, and changing fuel costs.
Because the cost of transportation has risen, it is harder for companies both in and on the receiving end of transport services to operate. Some companies have reduced the amount of shipping in their supply chain to compensate, but that means less product to sell. Others have raised prices or tried to find lower-cost shipping options.
This may be sustainable in the short-term, but that also means compromising the quality of shipping services and logistics. Many companies over-compensated for the slower supply chain during the pandemic, and are now faced with over-inventory issues.
Labor Shortages
Labor shortages across many industries remains a global challenge. Between labor strikes and reduced employment, the lack of in-house resources are impacting companies in many ways. For supply chain departments, that means navigating unprecedented supply chain disruptions with increased workloads and less employees.
Protect Your Global Manufacturing Supply Chain With Help From ITI Manufacturing
Now, more than ever, keeping your manufacturing supply chain running smoothly is difficult. However, there are some things that you can do to address these issues.
Here’s how partnering with an experienced global contract manufacturer like ITI Manufacturing can help:
Decades of Experience in Global Manufacturing
For decades, ITI Manufacturing has partnered with manufacturing facilities and logistics companies around the world. If you’re looking to pivot your manufacturing away from a specific country, move closer to home, free up constrained resources, or simply find alternative manufacturing sources at competitive prices, ITI has the experience you need.
Don’t Compromise on Quality
ITI has in-house quality professionals at our production facilities. Before production begins, we work hand-in-hand with your engineering, quality, and supply chain teams to make sure prototypes match design, production matches prototypes, and scheduling matches expectations.
During production, our in-house quality professionals handle inspection to make sure your parts meet your standards, before shipping. If an issue does happen to arise, we communicate with our customers immediately and work diligently to resolve the issues quickly and fully.
Know What’s Happening with your Production
Keeping track of what is happening in your manufacturing supply chain is difficult, even in the best of times. At ITI Manufacturing, we stay on top of every part of the process and enable visibility by providing weekly updates. At every point, you are made aware of what is happening so you can be proactive when it comes to production planning, inventory management, and shipment scheduling. You shouldn’t be the one searching for information, we provide it up-front, weekly.
Protect Your Global Manufacturing Supply Chain With Help From ITI Manufacturing
With the right contract manufacturing partner like ITI Manufacturing, you can navigate disruptions and keep your supply chain running smoothly.
With over 50 years of experience, we can help spring you ahead of your competition, even in challenging times. If you have questions, we’re happy to answer them.
Contact ITI today to discuss your global manufacturing needs!
