How Can You Mitigate Supply Chain Disruptions?
In the face of persistent supply chain challenges, we've gathered insights from top professionals, including a National Supply Chain Manager and an Operations Manager. They share different approaches, from diversifying resources to adapting services offered, to help mitigate disruptions. Discover four strategies that have proven effective in enhancing operational resilience.
- Diversify Resources and Assess Risks
- Enhance Resilience by Diversifying Suppliers
- Implement Dual-Supplier Strategy for Materials
- Adapt Services Offered and Find Substitutes
Diversify Resources and Assess Risks
An approach to mitigate any supply-chain disruptions to your operations would be to diversify your options and accessibility of resources. Having a backup plan for the backup plan is part of being '12 steps ahead' in being prepared. Creativity is also encouraged, and assessing the risk versus value of the options available to maintain operations at an optimal level. Having confidence in and reliability of the support of other parties within your value chain in the event of a disruption is the best proactive approach.
Whether it is internal or external, working together to achieve a business target or goal is essential. Being prepared for any unforeseen challenges or obstacles provides reassurance that you have a plan in place to maintain the momentum on any time-sensitive projects with targets and expectations.
Enhance Resilience by Diversifying Suppliers
One effective approach to mitigating supply-chain disruptions is diversifying suppliers. By sourcing materials and products from multiple vendors located in different geographic regions, I reduced dependency on any single source and enhanced resilience against regional disruptions, such as natural disasters, political instability, or logistical challenges. This strategy helped our operations by ensuring a more consistent supply flow, reducing lead times, and maintaining production schedules even when certain suppliers faced interruptions.
Implement Dual-Supplier Strategy for Materials
We've implemented a dual-supplier strategy for critical materials. For instance, instead of relying on a single fabric supplier, we established relationships with multiple sources. This approach ensured that if one supplier faced issues, we had alternatives ready to step in. By diversifying our supply base, we maintained a steady flow of materials, avoided delays, and kept our production on track. This proactive measure has strengthened our supply chain resilience and minimized operational disruptions.
Adapt Services Offered and Find Substitutes
The disruption in the supply chain caused by the COVID-19 pandemic proved to be a tremendous challenge for all businesses. The aesthetics industry was particularly affected by a chronic shortage of lidocaine, which is a common local anesthetic. We were able to largely overcome this obstacle because we substituted equally effective but lesser-known anesthetics like bupivacaine, articaine, and prilocaine, commonly used in medicine and dentistry. While there are differences between these agents, most are trivial, and one can generally be substituted for another.
This is not to say we were unaffected. We offer a number of services, including aesthetic lasers, hormone replacement therapy, injectables, and many others. If appropriate, we would guide our patients to other services we felt would provide similar benefits until the supply chain recovered, and we were able to offer our full menu of services. The globalized economy is as fragile as it is powerful.
