The positive side of the comic is that it provides essential information in the context of the chosen topic. In addition, there is an instructive motif in the comic that warns about the consequences if supply chains are not flexible enough. To successfully operate in an uncertain and globalized marketplace, supply chain flexibility is essential to reduce consumer demand uncertainty and to respond quickly to internal changes. Flexibility is the ability of a supply chain to adapt to relevant changes based on the range of options available (Al Humdan et al., 2020). Changes can occur within the supply chain and external environment and involve opportunities or risks. Regardless of how the focus the company decides to increase the supply chain’s responsiveness to market demands, to implement the chosen option successfully, it will need to pay special attention to the integration of processes, both internally and in relations with suppliers and customers. First of all, this concerns the presence of a single and coordinated sales and supply plan in the company, as well as the consistency of distribution, production, and supply processes in terms of such parameters as the availability of an end-to-end plan for the movement and transformation of material flow, consistency in the frequency and size of production batches, shipment, and delivery.
The first slide shows a cafe that is a consumer of certain goods. However, because this business has a single-lane supply chain, it cannot receive raw materials during a hurricane. The second slide says that all deliveries were made by river, so it is impossible to do this because the ships do not go. The third slide explains how cafes could benefit from flexible supply chains. In this case, he would not have to wait for the normalization of weather conditions, and the business would be less dependent on external factors. With natural disasters affecting the ability to operate and revenue, they have called into question the reliability of end-to-end supply and demand planning. Successful operational management in the face of excessive market and demand volatility is a new reality for supply chain managers worldwide. Macroeconomic cycles of growth, recession, and recovery have become uncontrollable. They called into question the reliability of end-to-end supply and demand planning.
The disruptions associated with recent natural disasters have increased the volatility of the chains. In intercompany collaboration, long-term loyalty and predictable order volumes seem to be a thing of the past. At the same time, customers are tightening their lead time requirements and declaring the need for perfect orders in delivery. However, they do not remove the requirement for continuous cost reduction in supply chains. The increasing use of online commerce leads to faster response times. It is forcing supply chain managers to find new solutions for the cross-border delivery of many small orders from individual customers instead of bulk shipments. Maximizing the flexibility of supply chains and managing their multiple configurations have become new goals for today’s leaders. At the same time, RFID and other digital technologies are taking industries to a new level of transparency and process automation. Such technologies allow multiple parties involved in the supply chain to freely interact with each other in the development, production, delivery, and service of complex customer orders. However, despite these kinds of efficiency-enhancing innovations available, supply chain leaders face significant challenges worldwide.
Reference
Al Humdan, E., Shi, Y., Behnia, M., & Najmaei, A. (2020). Supply chain agility: a systematic review of definitions, enablers and performance implications. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 50(2), 287-312. Web.