Cooler News: The Nation's Supply Chain Continued Impact from COVID-19

The pandemic’s start was months ago, but the impact of COVID-19 felt throughout the national supply chain continues. And as Jeff Monroe, KPS Global’s Director of Supply Chain explained, there are still many challenges to overcome.

Early on in the pandemic, back in March, one of the first areas of impact was product sourcing in Asia. “During that interim period, we (KPS Global) had to develop domestic sources to cover the immediate need,” Monroe said. “Several months into the crisis is has changed. It’s been a bit of a lagging impact where we addressed the issues at hand, and today? The issues; it’s different. It’s not so much the inability to ship because of the pandemic. There are difficulty producing items because of the constraints within the manufacturing world.”

The reasons for the production decreases are multi-fold. To learn more about the continuing impacts from COVID on the supply chain, check out the full podcast below.

And with the pandemic affecting business’ employees, an outbreak can cause significant manufacturing operation issues. While some of the pandemic problems and challenges did level off, the steady demand for products met with decreased production ability due to work-staff reductions. This trend caused a chain-reaction of price increases that have yet to return to normal levels. “It’s a capacity issue, right now,” Monroe said. “The demand is still there.”

With the pandemic not ready to end anytime soon, there are still solutions the global supply chain must seek out to get back on track.