SMART FACTORIES

PAUL WELLENER VC OF THE US INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS AND CONSTRUCTION PRACTICE , DELOITTE

This year , Wellener led Deloitte into a study of the manufacturing supply chain , Meeting the Challenge of Supply Chain Disruption , in conjunction with the Manufacturers ’ Alliance .

“ We surveyed around 200 executives in July who are all supply chain , transportation , logistics , and manufacturing executives , generally oriented around North America ,” said Wellener . “ We got the results from them as it relates to some of the supply chain challenges that everybody is facing , whether they ' re in the US or other parts of the world .”

Results showed the very heavy impact from supply chain disruption on all sorts of aspects of business and the frequency of those disruptions increasing .

“ Recently , we ' re seeing some waning in those disruptions , but they ' re still at higher levels than ever before ,” says Wellener . “ Over half of the executives stated that their companies have definitely had impacts from a profitability standpoint because of these supply-chain-oriented disruptions . I ' d say that ' s probably some of the key things coming out of the study .”

Results showed shipping delays , part shortages , transportation delays , the talent shortage and people-challenges as the biggest issues .

“ Supplier networks are not as broad and robust as they are probably going to become in the future ,” says Wellener . “ We ' re seeing a lot of companies now thinking about dual supplies and not just having one supplier , but bringing suppliers closer to the point of production .”

This trend is known as ‘ nearshoring ’ or ‘ onshoring ’, but this will mean nothing if the part shortages , transportation challenges and other problems are not solved .

The results generally hit Wellener ’ s expectations , but he was surprised at how high of an impact labour was .

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