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Logistics Consultants in Need of a Paradigm Shift

As the world began to make sense of the pandemic early last year, the US in particular was confronted with shortage of a very peculiar kind - toilet papers. With lockdown progressively imposed, people resorted to panic buying and suddenly, there was a scarcity across the country. So, while there was office rolls glut, toilet papers flew off the shelves. The US though manufactures more than 90% of toilet papers it needs with China and India sufficing for the balance; it was a horrible situation to be in. Back home, India was confronted with the lack of quality sanitizers and face masks. The scarcity in supply manifested itself in several other consumables and healthcare products and by the end of the year, oxygen concentrators; Remdesivir, Favipiravir, etc. not to be found when needed. What is the point when a lifesaving drug is not available when needed the most was the understandable refrain. From cycles to medicines to lifesaving drugs, we were staring at a supply shock. The very same consultants and experts who produce study papers after papers appreciating from technology to robotics, do advocate the need to understand the value chain better? So, how would a supply chain or logistics consultant worth her salt would provide for the solution for the disequilibrium between supply and demand the world found it in?

A general tendency that consultants or consultancy firms suffer from lie in their idea to quantify everything. Even before the Covid-19 stuck, this quantification had to factor in tariff barriers, trade restrictions, anti-dumping to hurricanes, heatwaves, typhoons, tsunami, etc., but apparently were taken as bolt from the blue, thus neutralizing any serious enquiry about the severability or threat such socio-economic disruptions have been posing to the entire value chain to which supply chain or logistics is just a bearer.

A value chain takes the perspective all the way from where materials are mined, the metals that are created, how they pass through the system, and then finally how the finished good gets to the customer. So a supply chain will be defined by a company, and it might include their first tier of suppliers. It might even include the suppliers of those suppliers. But very rarely do companies think of their supply chain as going all the way back to where do the raw materials come from and how do they come together at each step. How does a consultant, primarily a supply chain & logistics consultant hired by a company into manufacturing or logistics go into enquiring the whole value chain and suggest measures for strengthening and adaptability and at the same time enhancing efficiency and profit?

Over the last 3 decades or so, world has created for itself a multiplicity of economic systems competing with each other assisted by an incredibly complicated, complex global supply chain designed to serve the value chain. And they were designed for cost and efficiency, but without really a thought to what could go wrong along the way. The very same consultants and experts who produce study papers after papers extolling technology and robotics, do advocate the need to understand the value chain better?

Just In Time remains one of the incredibly successful story of a very lean supply chain that business houses of every hue adopted in different measures. Its’ original proponent Toyota, though remained largely unaffected by the pandemic. Contrarily, businesses including automotive who increasingly got into the same shoes forgetting that one size may not fit all and when the time came, they were helpless bystanders. When I urgently need something today, I’d rather not want to know where it is manufactured. Be it essential life-saving drugs or touchscreen of my hand phone.

Whether consultants, Logistics consultancy firms and specialists engaged in devising post-pandemic logistics strategy would have a rethink; curtail Just In Time, focus on localized warehousing, storage, and invest in regional logistics structures or would they remain steadfast in profit-seeking, efficiency-looking organisms making incremental changes here and there? Time!