Melissa's Blog - Procurement Professional

We hear all the time “the new norm”. We hear this more often than we’d like to. The truth of the matter is that this pandemic has changed the way our country operates. It’s changed the way we operate as a community, as individuals, as families. To understand why, I’ll share with you how COVID has changed the supply chain.

1. Corporate CEO’s are now paying closer attention to the supply chain and putting more effort into maintaining it.
2. Before the pandemic, cost reduction and productivity were what was driving supply chain process improvements and investments. The  pandemic has forced companies to shift the focus to ensuring business continuity.
3. The buyer and supplier relation has been altered. More and more are learning to partner to get what they need.
4. Supply chain workarounds are the new standard way of life. More companies are finding other ways to meet customer’s needs without having to wait on suppliers.
5. Inventory norms are not what they used to be. Companies are keeping way more supply of materials than they have in the past, simply to not be low on stock.

What are your thoughts about this? What ways can we work together to come to a common goal?

This is a book about supply chain management and women. Specifically, how the authors led a three-year-long lean transformation initiative across three manufacturing plants with amazing results. Detailing the lessons they learned about building inclusive, high-performing teams.

The authors target audience is women in the supply chain. They talk about what it’s like to live in a “man’s world” and it’s ok to be a successful woman in that world. They also talk about leaving the day job to be the women they are in this world…Moms, daughters, wives, etc. This is a wonderful read for any woman struggling with their place in the working world.

Women, please weigh in here. What are some of the complaints that you may have about working in the Supply Chain world? Are you in management, are you in production, what is your role and where do you “rank” on the “food chain”? If you are upper echelon management I’d like to hear your story about how you got there? Do you feel you had to work twice as hard as a male counterpart? Did you have to know someone to get to where you are? What politics were involved with your career climb? Were you, and are you treated fairly? I’m interested to hear how different workplaces treat women in the field. Please share.

Steel Toes and Stilettos | A True Story of Women Manufacturing Leaders (taylorfrancis.com)

At the end of Q2 last year the Biden Administration announced plans to invest $2.7 billion into domestic supply network capabilities of essential vaccine components.  The funding for this vaccine supply network was reported to be coming from funds via the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.

This all sounds good on paper, but this dollar figure doesn’t include the production of these drugs. The pharmaceutical companies, such as Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Moderna, will have to afford their own capacity projects, machinery, supplies, etc. To make matters worse, prior to the global outbreak of COVID-19, an estimated 80 percent of the global supply of the APIs needed to produce a large variety of life saving pharmaceutical drugs, not COVID related, had been sourced in either India or China.

In my opinion, there doesn’t seem to be a complete thought process around this plan. I think it’s great that the Presidency is recognizing that the domestic supply is in need of funding, but what about everything that goes into creating the supply? Maybe there’s more to this article than we are being told; most likely the case. What do you think is being left out? And why do you think it’s being left out? Is this tied to lobbying and hiding money and lining politician pocket like everything else is in politics? Could this be a clean transaction and the government really didn’t think this spending bill through and we’re really going to leave the Pharma companies to foot the bill to expand their capacity in a supply chain deficient world?

Infrastructure package: Here’s what’s in it – CNNPolitics