ANNOTATING ASSIGNMENT

Name : Rakha Hadi Fauzan

TPB : 30
Study Program : Industrial Engineering

Maintaining Relationships While Battling the Supply Chain

(Industrial Engineering)

Supply chain kinks and rising inflation pose challenges for jan/san distributors. As a result,
many leaders are navigating uncertain waters. For example, COVID-19 brought a dizzying
array of challenges to the world’s economy. Lock downs, panic hording, shortages, and a lack
of labor revealed how fragile the global supply chain really is.
While the present environment is certainly better than those first foggy weeks and months,
problems continue. Backlogs persist at ports. Critical items, like batteries, remain hard to
source. And the demand for cleaning supplies and services has remained high. Now cue
inflation, that boogey man from the past who is all too ready to make an appearance.
It’s been four decades since inflation has been a newsworthy topic, making it a great
unknown for many younger professionals. As a blog from law firm Foley & Lardner LLP
puts it, “Many of those at the upper echelons of leadership today have never dealt with a high
inflationary environment. To put it in perspective, the CEO of Walmart, the No. 1 company
on the Fortune 500 list for 2021, was 19 years old when inflation was last a newsworthy
topic.”
This climate has jan/san distributors scrambling in every direction. Now, along with sourcing
new suppliers and figuring out how to deliver product, many are wondering if it’s time to
raise prices. Here’s how some in the industry are coping.

The Struggle is Real

The COVID-19 pandemic created a cascade of disruptions right from the start. “Sourcing
things like PPE (personal protective equipment) was a nightmare,” recalls David Trinks,
R.Ph., CEO of Franklin, Massachusetts-based Trinks Consulting Group about those early
days. “Getting product out of China presented another problem. I had one billion plastic
containers to hold hand sanitizer on the loading dock waiting to be shipped. It was usurped by
the Chinese government.”
As the pandemic wore on, clearing product out of China did not guarantee smooth sailing.
Port congestion on the U.S. side was, and still remains, high. Relief appears to be nowhere in
sight. “Port congestion in the U.S. will get worse before it gets better,” writes Peter
Tirschwell in The Journal of Commerce.
Add in sky-high shipping container rates and onshoring product production sounds like a
great solution. But don’t get too excited. Trinks reports that the cost for domestic shipping is
just as eyepopping. “I just transported some material from Chicago to Long Island, New
York, and the price was quadruple of what it was just four months ago,” he says.

Supply Chain Struggles

China’s Zero-COVID policy, when the government forcibly locked down entire cities,
continues to add fuel to this volatile supply chain situation, according to Daniel Wong,
undergraduate supply and logistics management program director at Portland State
University, Oregon. The policy is impacting the deliverability of raw materials from China,
even for those companies manufacturing in the U.S.
Not only are labor issues impacting any supply moving through China, Wong believes the
staffing challenges in the U.S. will also persist. “The competition for blue-collar labor is
strong,” he says. “UPS and Amazon have sucked up all the people who used to do
construction, work in restaurants or drive trucks.”
Glen Huizenga, sales leader at Norton Shores, Michigan-based Nichols, a Division of
Imperial Dade, agrees. “Labor is impacting manufacturers, causing them to make choices
about what product SKUs to produce or not produce,” says Huizenga.
While this strife tested many distributors, some emerged stronger, according to Phil
Carrizales, director of hygiene and facilities solutions at ACME Paper & Supply Company,
Richmond, Virginia. “Sourcing for some items such as cleaning supplies, disinfectants and
wipes have gotten better since they were in extremely high demand when COVID-19 was
surging,” he recalls. “The experience we gained at the beginning of the pandemic really
pushed us to look forward and identify what categories of supplies would be next on the
priority list as the country started to reopen.”

Main Idea

Important Points
Descriptive Outline from each paragraph
1. Lock downs, panic hording, shortages, and a lack of labor revealed how fragile the
global supply chain really is.
2. Now cue inflation, that boogey man from the past who is all too ready to make an
appearance.
3. Many of those at the upper echelons of leadership today have never dealt with a high
inflationary environment.
4. Along with sourcing new suppliers and figuring out how to deliver product, many are
wondering if it’s time to raise prices.
5. I had one billion plastic containers to hold hand sanitizer on the loading dock waiting
to be shipped.
6. “Port congestion in the U.S. will get worse before it gets better,” writes Peter
Tirschwell in The Journal of Commerce.
7. “I just transported some material from Chicago to Long Island, New York, and the
price was quadruple of what it was just four months ago,” he says.
8. When the government forcibly locked down entire cities, continues to add fuel to this
volatile supply chain situation, continues to add fuel to this volatile supply chain
situation, according to Daniel Wong, undergraduate supply and logistics management
program director at Portland State University, Oregon.
9. “The competition for blue-collar labor is strong,” he says. “UPS and Amazon have
sucked up all the people who used to do construction, work in restaurants or drive
trucks.”
10. “Labor is impacting manufacturers, causing them to make choices about what product
SKUs to produce or not produce,”
11. Sourcing for some items such as cleaning supplies, disinfectants and wipes have
gotten better since they were in extremely high demand when COVID-19 was
surging,”
Summary

Supply chain kinks and rising inflation pose challenges for jan/san distributors. As a result,
many leaders are navigating uncertain waters. Because of the Covid 19 pandemic too.

As a blog from law firm Foley & Lardner LLP puts it, “Many of those at the upper
echelons of leadership today have never dealt with a high inflationary environment. The
policy is impacting the deliverability of raw materials from China, even for those
companies manufacturing in the U.S. Not only are labor issues impacting any supply
moving through China, Wong believes the staffing challenges in the U.S. will also persist.
While this strife tested many distributors, some emerged stronger.

Comments

The experience that was certainly very difficult for them to gain at the beginning of the
pandemic really encouraged them to look ahead and identify what supply categories will be
on the priority list when the country begins to reopen.
References
(n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.cleanlink.com/sm/article/How-to-Maintain-Customer-Loyalty-
Amid-Supply-Chain-Struggles--28971