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The shock of the coronavirus pandemic has exposed global supply chain vulnerabilities, with the shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators two stark examples of the downstream impact. One lesson is already becoming clear; visibility of capacity across the supply chain lowers risk and makes shocks easier to absorb.
Two industry leaders, both of whom have been able to assist the NHS due to the flexibility and resilience supply chain digitalisation has afforded their respective organisations, are urging industry peers to resist the instinct to treat the Coronavirus pandemic as a crisis to solve in the short term, and to view it as an imperative to build long-term resilience into their own supply chains.
Martin Vares, founder and MD of the cloud-based metal fabrication platform Fractory believes the current situation will cause entire industries to reconsider their approach to procurement and supply chain management:
"The current situation is of course extreme. A lot of supply chains are suffering, as manufacturing companies are reducing their workforce or even halting operations. International freight adds an extra layer of complexity. Thus, a lot of engineering companies are searching for solutions that address the manufacturing process and the shipping process at the same time. I think this is why we've experienced a significant increase in interest in our service, as it addresses both problems simultaneously.
Our platform offers instant manufacturing quotes online and we take care of everything from quoting to delivery. But the manufacturing side is outsourced to our pre-vetted partners. Some engineers have been wary of us 'being just a middleman.' They are now seeing the perks. With over 25 partners, we are not affected by small fluctuations in capabilities. And the same applies to our customers. Contractors winning big jobs often don't want to overwhelm their own production by using it for one order only. So, they outsource parts of these large orders. Now, during the crisis, there are huge jobs going around in an industry where the ties have not been established over the years, hence new companies are winning big jobs. And they, in turn, are looking for partners to help them.”
Fractory is just someone who can easily help other companies with managing the load. We are not being used by engineers only, other manufacturing companies often turn to us with the same objective.
Fractory’s automated manufacturing platform can rapidly switch between a network of partners to secure continuity of supply for our customers. Thus, it continues to run on full power and has been able to assist with large orders related to the NHS.
“While the current situation brings a lot of uncertainty, digital manufacturing's strength is becoming evident,” concludes Vares.
Managing Director, Digital Ventures Tata Steel in Europe.
Matt Yeates, managing director of their SteelScout procurement platform, believes that manufacturing companies with existing digitized supply chains are uniquely placed to support the economy.
"Everybody now is experiencing major changes to their daily lives, learning to adapt to the guidelines for safe operation of our businesses, through to protecting our communities during the pandemic," says Yeats, "These challenges mean we reach for new solutions or enhance current approaches."
He continues, "The power of digital in solving these problems, from 3D printing to multiple participant video conferencing, has never more been more apparent. Digital enablers for the manufacturing value chain are developing fast and their value at the moment is magnified against the challenges of continuity for key industries and workers.
Being a digital business means that we’re able to respond quickly and rapidly connect the right buyers with the right suppliers in order to guarantee materials and jobs. We have already supported companies working on key projects, including the manufacturing of ventilators for the NHS, by being able to rapidly quote for and turn around materials and guarantee jobs. And we’re here to support businesses in any way we can during these challenging conditions."
Autodesk’s Srinath Jonnalagadda, Senior Director, Fusion 360 Go-to-Market believes the compromises and improvisation we’re seeing now has the potential to become the norm when the industry has time to reflect on the efficiencies. But for now, he and his team are focused on reacting to immediate challenges.
"Fusion 360 has always been set up with collaboration in mind, your data is centralized to the cloud, meaning all teammates have access at any time, anywhere. Right now, that advantage is being leveraged by teams to help minimize the disruption to their project work." Jonnalagadda says, and continues:
"We have opened up these capabilities to everyone, for free, to minimize disruption across entire supply chains. To help out professionals and companies that are struggling to cope with disruption in work, we recently rolled out an extended access program, giving everyone access to all of our cloud based tools such as Fusion 360, for free, until the 31st of May. We’re certainly seeing an influx of users looking to Fusion 360 to solve their design problems right now, but the increase is not our focus, we want to ensure people can still work.
It’s too early to tell if this new way of working will have a positive impact on the sector, there is much to be said about the desire for people to work in person, eye to eye, and we may see the pendulum swing back toward that aggressively in the short term once this is all over, but for manufacturing, just standardizing everyone onto a digital medium is already a major push forward.
If the conveniences, and efficiency continue to outweigh any potential drawbacks (and they continuously will!) then a predominantly digital workflow shall emerge as the new paradigm. Eventually companies will all be prepared for the system shocks that occur with global crises or unforeseen circumstances, and today that solution means moving to an increasingly digital and cloud driven way of working. The ultimate end-goal for manufacturing lies with centralized systems. If we can move towards fabrication strategies as we see in semi-conductor factories, with less and less human intervention, we can increase accuracy and open new possibilities up with automation, bringing about the next paradigm shift in technology and manufacturing.”