The Coronavirus (COVID-19) has disrupted the world’s supply chains. Initially this was due to the elimination of production in China. Now that the Coronavirus is a pandemic, other links in the chain are also failing. This article discusses examples of how automation prevents supply chain disruption caused by the Coronavirus and future pandemics.
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Supply chain disruptions caused by pandemics are predictable because the majority of our supply chains rely on human labor. This will continue to be true because automation is often significantly more expensive than human labor. This article discusses when and how automation can protect people and the economy from the worst effects of pandemics by providing a reduced requirement of human labor for production of essential items in the supply chain.
The Coronavirus (COVID-19) has managed to reduce China’s productivity by shutting down factories which is, in turn, already having a negative effect on global supply chains. Our global economy is now at risk of grinding to a halt due to those disruptions. This disruption is occurring due to temporary quarantine measures and illness related closures.
Considering the delays to restoring production in China, we should expect very real and long reaching changes to our manufacturing and supply chains. Tech companies, apparel makers, and industrial-equipment manufacturers are just a few examples of businesses which are seeing significant stoppage or slowing of their manufacturing.
How can automation prevent supply chain disruptions caused by a pandemic like the Coronavirus (COVID-19)?
Automation of a process is an expensive proposition. This is due to the need for high cost production equipment and high cost specialized labor to create, implement, and maintain that equipment. There needs to be good reasons to automate a process. Those reasons usually comes down to 1 or more of the following 3 items:
- Increased productivity
- Increased precision/quality
- Decreased production time
This pandemic that has alerted us to another reason that needs to be considered:
- Redundancy of productivity in the face of workforce shortages
The automation of essential production required during pandemics will result in increased resiliency of the global supply chain. It will also assure availability of items required for health and safety during a pandemic.
Further automation can and should entail remote access to manufacturing capabilities allowing required human labor to continue even in the event of quarantine measures.
Examples of automation that prevents supply chain disruption during pandemics
Face masks
While many steps in the production process of face-masks are automated, there are multiple manual interactions to connect the steps together and check quality of manufactured masks. The need for cheap labor to perform these tasks has resulted in China becoming the majority supplier of medical face masks.
China is now using most of their capacity to supply its own needs rather than the world’s. A public demand for face-masks has exacerbated the shortage. Despite all evidence that they don’t protect the healthy. In many areas health care professionals do not currently have a sufficient supply of face-masks to stop the sick from infecting others or themselves.
The number of face-masks needed by healthcare professionals is relatively small when compared to the global demand. The full automation of face-mask production for healthcare professionals during pandemics makes a lot of sense. This holds true even if the fully automated production costs are much higher than making masks in China.
Placing multiple fully automated mask factories strategically around the globe also reduces risk of epidemic disruptions. The purpose of these facilities adds a safety net to the global supply chain at a critical weak point.
Prescription Drugs
20 FDA approved prescription drugs rely on China for some component of their manufacture. The first of those 20 medications has already been delayed. In a global supply chain world, economies of scale play a large role in centralizing manufacturing. Nations with low labor costs and weak environmental regulations tend to be where manufacturing goes. It is time to question these decisions for essential pharmaceuticals during pandemics.
Many active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) tare made only in China to save on costs. However, the risks of single sourced API’s in the face of pandemics may make the cost too high. Automation of API manufacture will cost more than current manufacture in China.
Investment in automated manufacture would enable us to de-risk the production of multiple pharmaceuticals. It would also allow movement of at least some of the manufacture to other parts of the world.
3D Printing of plastic devices
The break down of the supply chain can have impacts that are immediately apparent like a lack of face masks and other personal protective equipment. Or the impact can have obvious consequences like the lack of pharmaceuticals that people need to survive. But what about the less obvious items like plastic valves or other plastic molded devices? Enter 3D printing.
Italian reanimation devices are being repaired using 3D printed valves. This could be a common theme for virtually any plastic device.
Check out some of our other 3D Printing articles if you are interested in learning more about 3D printing,
Your presentations added to my understanding. Never really considered the subject of automation for work force assistance in critical supply chains or the obvious potential effects of not having redundant supply sources. Just assumed that the “powers that be” were thinking ahead (obviously not).
Even though pandemics are a question of when not if, they still have a relatively low frequency. So low that it’s been 102 years since the last deadly pandemic. Thinking ahead in this case requires understanding history, not something that the current powers that be seem to excel at.