Pandemic impact on supply chains: strategies to minimize supply chain disruption

Abstract

Covid-19 pandemic has challenged all the areas of living of people in the last year, supply chains were not excluded by it. Restriction measures, global health concerns and drastic-unreasonable demand changes were the main issues supply chains had and still have to face in the most globalized world ever seen. The aim of this work is to understand how the pandemic impacted in the supply chains, the first reactions of companies to minimize the disruption of the production, logistic and supply shock and finally the measures to be taken in order to prevent future problems. The question of this study is, in fact: how did supply chains react to pandemic and what can they do to be more resilient? To answer this question, in the first section we show the chronological development of the pandemic, starting from China’s outbreak and its expansion to the rest of the world, keeping in mind the economical context in which the event takes place. In the second section we first review literature on natural disasters, since it are the most similar events to a pandemic in terms of their effects. Moreover, in the third section we depict the suggestions to move to a more resilient management of the supply chain and the possible measures to be taken by supply chain managers. The focus will be on the improvements and weaknesses of current supply chain management techniques, such as Just-In-Time methodology, in-shoring possibilities and demand management. At this study publishing, supply chains are still struggling with uncertainty associated with the pandemic situation and need to change some of their features and strengthen others to prevent future disruptions. Future researches could take advantage of more specific and updated information on this topic.