They continue to mean everything, up to a point. But one
portion of the resilience solution involves conscious and
deliberate construction of redundant production capacity
within the system. That allows transfer of
processing facilities that have not been
affected by the latest disruptive event,
whether it’s a volcano in Iceland, riots in
Greece, or wars of liberation almost anywhere.
But until the overcapacity is needed, it
will sit idle, creating anxiety and confusion in many quarters.
To complicate matters further, for that
expensive capacity to be actually useful in
an emergency, the technology and
processes (and workforce quality and level of training) need
to be totally consistent throughout all facilities. Another
“wasted” investment to challenge the CFO’s sense of control, frugality, and financial responsibility.
These are major efforts, major resource commitments,
major paradigm shifts, and major internal selling jobs, with
possible major relationship fallouts.
But because of the time and struggle involved, and because
of the apparently never-ending string of
amazing events that cripple and shut down
supposedly invincible business powerhouses, the process of building supply chain
resilience needs to be undertaken.
It’s grueling work, and the options to be
considered are often frightening and seldom uplifting. But the consequences of
not planning and putting the required
protections in place become more clear
with every passing catastrophe.
And given the time and complexity of
thorough—and practical—solution development, there’s
no better time than right now to get to work on the issue
and try to make up for lost time. ;
WHAT THIS MEANS TO MANY COMPANIES
So, we can’t get all superior and expect global enterprises
(or even neighborhood candy stores) to create resiliency
plans with the snap of a finger.
Art van Bodegraven, practice leader at S4 Consulting, may be reached at (614)
336-0346 or avan@columbus.rr.com. You can read his blog at http://blogs.dcve-locity.com/the_art_of_art/. Kenneth B. Ackerman, president of The Ackerman
Company, can be reached at (614) 488-3165 or ken@warehousing-forum.com.
+ 2!.; 5+ 1.;;//!0/;
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