Last week, hurricane Harvey tore through Texas leaving coastal cities in shambles and thousands displaced from their homes. Now, Florida is bracing for impact with hurricane Irma on track to strike over the next few days.
With severe weather looming, we always see a mad dash to grocery stories, as panicked shoppers scour the aisles for “essentials” such as milk, bread, and bottled water. Unfortunately, in times of disaster stores can rarely keep up with demand and quickly run out of these critical items. Not only is there currently a shortage of staples like food and water, the hurricane wreaking havoc on Texas is limiting access to another invaluable commodity: oil. This disruption in oil production not only affects the local area, but we’ll see a domino effect across the country and on many industries as logistics and manufacturing overheads rise. Current decentralized supply chain models, meaning the product journey starts at one corner of the world and ends thousands of miles away, means that the effects of these major disruptions can often be felt globally.
The challenge for businesses in high risk areas is not if there will be a major natural disaster, it’s when it will arrive and what can be done to prepare and mitigate supply chain disruption so stores can remain stocked with the necessities and key industries can maintain business continuity regardless of the storm’s impact.
Below are a few tips for how organizations can thrive in the face of severe weather and unusually high customer demand:
- Review all available information. Knowing where the affected areas are and when they’ll be impacted is crucial. Businesses need to have a clear view of where their inventory is and how it can quickly get to the right place, at the right time. IoT sensors can be extremely valuable for monitoring and reporting the status of various shipments.
- Plan for the weather forecast as well as the sales forecast. Most companies have a long-term plan that is based on historical seasonal trends, but it’s what happens in the short-term planning horizon (the next week or two) that makes the difference when weather patterns disrupt your “perfect plan.”
- Monitor the location of all boats, tankers, planes, and trains that are carrying your goods, and track and trace inventory so you can quickly reroute shipments and redistribute products and supplies to the neediest locations in response to short-term surges in demand. Further, it’s important to have a multi- sourcing strategy in place so products can be obtained from alternate locations if extreme weather is impacting certain production areas.
- Deliver integrated logistics and order fulfillment processes that can identify blockages and disruptions in the distribution network, and suggest alternate routes or modes of transport to deliver the right product at the right place at the right time.
We can’t stop severe weather from hitting our cities but having a flexible supply chain that can adapt to sudden surges in demand is key to not only keeping business operations afloat but for providing the products and services people in the affected areas so desperately need during these times.
With rising water levels, come the rising concerns to keep your assets running, and having the visibility and information to spot danger before it happens and adapt when it does is paramount.