When we started discussing the package of stories in this issue, our working title was “Backlog Bounceback,” to reflect an update and a report on the anticipated return to normal of the supply chain. If we’re being literarily precise, it’s been a little bit more of a dribble back.
Make no mistake: Things are improving. The furniture manufacturing community has proven incredibly resilient, creative and adept at problem solving in the face of a once-in-a-century confluence of events. It’s worth noting, for example, that production lines have needed to be re-configured to accommodate social distancing, workflows and human resource allocations adapted to mitigate unprecedented and unpredictable worker absences.
Once goods are produced, finding ways to get them to their final destination and overcome pitfalls and obstacles along each and every step of that process has become a puzzle-solving exercise that could make solving a Rubik’s Cube blindfolded seem easy.
Even the term “supply chain,” which is most often used colloquially to reference the movement of finished goods, has seen its full and intricately complex interconnectivity highlighted in stark relief as manufacturers have needed to find creative ways to access parts, pieces, components, fabrics, finishes and more at a time when each of those individual supply chains and their respective components is also being disrupted.
All things considered, it seems at times heroic that goods have continued to flow at the rates they have and that a “return to normal” or relatively so, is being discussed in terms of only a few months.
This isn’t to say that when the second or even the third quarter arrives they will bring with them all goods consumers today are demanding or that backlogs and order times will suddenly be exactly as they were in the days before anyone had heard of COVID-19. One thing that’s become clear is that this is going to be a process and an ongoing challenge.
It is not impacting all segments of the business, or all manufacturers, in the same way. Some segments and some suppliers will return to relative normality sooner than others, and even some of those will face stops and starts along the way.
The need to problem-solve and to accommodate disruptions associated with the pandemic and its aftermath will be with us for some time to come. But as we approach the at-times-uncertain end of this and as things begin return, albeit inconsistently, to normal, it’s worth remembering a lesson learned in the early days of this crisis:
When those shutdowns, the first tool that everyone unpacked was “communication.” I recall time and again hearing people share stories about how much extra time and effort was spent communicating with partners and how powerful that effort was in working through things and maintaining long-standing relationships.
As things hesitatingly and unevenly return to what we can only hope is normal, that tool will be more important than ever.
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February 08, 2021 at 06:00PM
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Blog: Ready, set … wait: Backlogs getting better, but slowly - Furniture Today
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