MHD SUPPLY CHAIN
DISRUPTION IS THE NEW NORMAL – HOW AUTOMATION BUILDS BUSINESS RESILIENCE
Dematic’s Pas Tomasiello – Senior Regional Director Sales & Solutions Development, and Philip Makowski – Director Marketing APAC, explain how in times of disruption automation is key to building business resilience.
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e are constantly being reminded that we are living through one of the greatest periods of disruption in history. Working and shopping patterns have changed and images of empty shelves in the supermarket, along with announcements of buying restrictions for essential groceries, have practically become commonplace throughout the pandemic. However, for residents in Western Australia and the Northern Territory, it was not COVID-19 that was the cause of recent food shortage issues, but rather a mass flooding event that temporarily cut rail supply lines, leading to a scarcity of imported goods. Likewise, the catastrophic impact of the recent floods in southeast Queensland, Sydney and the NSW Northern Rivers is still being determined, but what we can expect is that supply chains will be seriously impacted, either as much as or even more than the previous major floods in the same region in 2011. The fact that these unexpected supply chain interruptions occurred during a period of wider disruption for businesses has underlined that the pandemic isn’t the only unforeseen challenge or crisis impacting supply chains. Those organisations that view the current period of challenging operating conditions as being temporary, with improving circumstances leading to a ‘new normal’ in the near future are being overly optimistic, if not unrealistic. What is far more likely is that disruptions 20 | MHD APRIL 2022
Businesses that have invested in automation aremore resilient to unforeseen disruptions.
are now the norm, not the exception, whether it be from a new variant of a global virus, natural disasters, or geopolitical or economic events. So, how can companies and their supply chain organisations manage their businesses under such challenging operating conditions? How can they utilise new technologies to build resilience and agility into their supply chains to meet customer and business demands?
TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS FOR THE NEW NORMAL The current pandemic has shown that businesses who have invested in automation are more resilient to unforeseen disruptions. In turn,
automation has enabled these businesses to maintain and manage operations during testing circumstances, and deliver customer orders with limited staff, while also facilitating social distancing. Automation has also equipped these businesses with the capacity, flexibility, and responsiveness to handle spikes in order volumes and changes to order profiles, such as an influx of online orders. Of these pioneering retailers choosing to automate operations, many stated that their highly automated order fulfilment system ideally positioned them to maintain high customer service levels, with rapid, error-free order fulfilment, as online orders spiked at the start of the pandemic. This has
