Disruption in Supply Chain- during lockdown -Moumita Sen( M.Com, Visiting Faculty Member, Techno India School of ManagementStudies, kolkata)

A country or even World cannot bring back its positions before this pandemic happened, it has to move on and adapt all the new normal in every step and rebuild the future of economy of World.

As we can see, Industrial Sectors are facing challenge to normalize their supply chain management which has been massively disrupted due to the lock down all over the world. It is a huge challenge for every sector to get back to the full-fledged work life where antidote for the COVID-19 is not there.

Niti Ayog BEO Amitabh Kant said at a virtual session on ‘COVID -19 & The Future of Work’ that climate change has always been there. “What the virus, COVID-19, has done, is that it has created another shock and continued to put us on the path of change. For me, it is the acceleration of that change”

After declaration of nationwide lockdown by honorable PM to slowdown the spread of contingencies of the virus, he assured that essential services including daily groceries, will continue uninterrupted. But the reality was slightly different. The last 3 months of continuing lockdown throughout the country affect massively the supply chain management as transportation, lack of workers presence were the key problem. The problem 

rises with farming and manufacturing industry - preservatives for packaged food – not being able to reach factories.

• ·         Disrupted movement of Inventory

The lock down has led to the lack of workers presence at production units and farms. This disrupted the entire supply side of the business of manufacturing industries. Many brands confess that they have less than half a million units of stock in their warehouses. In order to restore stock, they have to keep their plants open, need raw materials from farms and need labor to manufacture goods.

“The industry will run out of stock in warehouses if food manufacturing plants or brands don't function in full capacity. They need to be able to collect produce from farmers to make the final product and also have access to labor. Also, without work, blue-collar workers and their families will suffer. The government needs to plan the next phase carefully as many brands are not able to supply food products to the market,” says Lalit Bhise, Co-founder of Mobisy Technologies, which helps 300 brands distribute their products across India.

 It also has been observed that the retailers are storing and selling local or state –specific brands as they are not able to stock up on national brands because trucks were not moving during lock down and logistic services were also interrupted accordingly.

• ·         Disrupted movement of logistics

The great challenge underlying for firms was how to get workers back to work to make the goods and transport. According to Better Place , India has 17 Crore Blue-collar workers, and 70% have laid off because of the pandemic. Even though there is a demand for immediate employment in the logistics and essentials manufacturing industry, it has not been easy to bring migrant labors and also employed workers back to the trucks, warehouses and factories.

According to data by Logistics Now and Lobb, 50 percent of the 12.5 million heavy, medium, and small commercial vehicles have shut their engines because of corona virus.

 “Trucks are stuck in yards. Drivers are not available, and for those available to ship products, their trucks are stopped by the police and are not allowed to travel,” says Venu Kondur, Co-founder of Lobb.

• ·         Disruption in collection of data

Each company or brand handles logistics supported the info coming from a distribution ecosystem, which they need created over the years. But this is digital not real-time. For collection of real time data, they also need the physical side (trucks, plants, workers, etc.) up and running to finish and distribute product.

"There are close to one million wholesalers or distributors spread across the country who work with around 10 million mom-and-pop retailers. Data collected here is housed with thousands of brands – both local and national. These brands have data on consumption hotspots and can easily work with the government to get logistics back on track"

As plants dependent on human labor are shut, only automated plants will open up. But, these automated plants don't have trucks working fully capacity to transport the products . On the commodities side, stock isn't being picked up either from the farm or the plant for subsequent batch of production. Smaller brands are also not being able to sell on e-commerce platforms or through their usual distribution channels. The unavailability of workers has also disrupted the system. Products are not delivered by the suppliers in time to the retailers so customers are unable to meet their needs.

The last few months has been the most difficult time for the firms to keep their supply chain management in order and this will worsen the situation unless the ecosystem of logistics leaders works with the government without demanding immediate compensation of their losses during lock down. To create a positive vibe among their workers and to create more proactive measures to bring back the full-fledged work system will be a challenge for every manufacturing and service sectors for the new normal future.