LAS T WO R D |
PEGEEN HOPKINS
How Your Sneakers Get From the Factory to Your Feet “You cannot manage what you cannot see.” That’s an adage associate professor Penina Orenstein cites when talking about her work mapping supply chains. She talks about the need for transparency into these complex, behind-the-scenes networks that have gotten public attention because of product delays and a scarcity of goods brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Seton Hall
that obstacle is in place, the longer the impact of that
magazine editor Pegeen Hopkins spoke to Orenstein
disruption. That’s also true for supply chains. A small, local
recently to learn more.
disruption can be unfortunate, but not detrimental. When the impact is broad, across the supply chain, it just takes
What is a supply chain?
longer for the recovery.
I think of a supply chain as a wind-up watch with cogs. The functions within the supply chain — the inventories,
What else is important to understand?
manufacturing, transportation, warehouses, customer
The digital tracing of a supply chain is more important
service — all interact with each other. They work properly
today than in the past. By this, I mean mapping out the
when everything’s in tandem. But if you have even one
supply chain and knowing where every item is. You can
tooth out of whack on the cogs, then the whole supply
think of supply chains as being quite opaque. You know
chain can fail.
vaguely that you want to get goods from A to B, but if you were to know exactly where things are with a clear
Why have some goods become scarce? COVID-19 is the prominent reason, a result of disruptions in both manpower and transportation, because
mapping, the system would work much more efficiently. Customers today want their items fast and they want things customized. That means supply chains have to be
transportation is the glue of any supply chain. Think of
agile, robust and resilient, like a three-pronged triangle.
the record level of congestion at the Ports of Los Angeles
Agile: Can the system be re-engineered to support
and Long Beach that everybody’s heard about, or the
the changing customer trends? Robust: Can it handle
manufacturing outages across China when they shut
disruption, but still operate, even if a chip cannot be
down plants because of COVID. And the shortages of
shipped from a specific region? Resilient: Can the system
truck drivers and service workers.
not fall apart in the event of a disruption? My research is about mapping the supply chain. The
How long will the disruptions last?
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initial mapping is knowing who your suppliers and the
I’m going to guess the delays will continue for
suppliers of suppliers are. Then, more information is
another year. I say this because of my background as a
added to that basic structure, like a dashboard. You can
transportation researcher. My Ph.D. was in transportation.
add in information about geography or the financial side
Whenever you have a perturbation in the transport system,
of the supply chain, for example. The goal is to have as
it takes a long time to iron out. If there’s congestion on
much transparency as you can get. Companies that are
the highway with cars backing up, you move whatever the
mapping supply chains well have really succeeded during
obstacle is and the cars start to flow again. But the longer
the COVID-19 pandemic.
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