Hurricane Harvey Rains Disaster on Supply Chains

The supply chain manager's guide to the Hurricane Harvey aftermath On August 25 Hurricane Harvey, later downgraded to a tropical storm, hit the Texas Gulf Coast with severe effects in the Houston metropolitan area, other parts of Texas, and Louisiana. When such disasters happen, we are all emotionally affected by the human tragedy, injuries and death (close to 50 deaths accounted for so far), devastation of properties that families had worked long and hard to build, and the desperation that follows as people try to pick up their lives, either going back to flooded homes or finding a new place in a new area with almost no assets to carry over. Part of a supply chain manager’s job is to think about how such natural disasters will affect their company’s supply chain. In the tightly connected global supply chains of today, there is a high likelihood that there will be an impact, regardless of how far away the event. Many recent disasters serve as examples of this global impact: Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, the Japanese earthquake and tsunami north of Tokyo, or the flooding in Thailand. American and Western European car companies’ plant operations that sourced components from Japanese suppliers were halted within a week. And PC makers were disrupted due to the loss of 40% of worldwide capacity in hard disk drives in the Thai floods. Hurricane Harvey is another strong reminder of lessons learned in supply chain risks and their management, and how devastating and far reaching the effects of such events can be for supply chains. It is perhaps a bit hyperbolic, but rightly so, to say that the whole world will feel the pinch of Harvey. Full article → http://bit.ly/2wPp1UF _________________________________________________________________________________________ For access to exclusive digital content, events, cutting-edge research, and professional training, download our mobile app → https://bit.ly/bcsci-app