What Does Supply Chain Resiliency Really Mean, and What Does it Really Look Like for the Consumer

Between the COVID-19 pandemic, conflicts between nations, and natural disasters in various parts of the world, manufacturing and supplying goods to consumers consistently, while keeping prices competitive, has been a true challenge over the past few years. 

The medical community has experienced some of the most significant supply chain disruptions, with healthcare systems often unable to access the medical supplies they need. In response to this need, new supply chain initiatives are helping the healthcare industry recover and find more stable and consistent sources for critical supplies and equipment.

What Is Supply Chain Resiliency?

Any link in a supply chain can lead to a disruption: availability of raw materials, manufacturing, shipping, distributing, and even consumer behavior. If one link in the chain is weak it can affect the entire system. And in some cases, multiple links can be affected by global or regional events. 

Supply chain resiliency is achieved when a business can respond quickly to, or even avoid, the potential impacts of disruptive events interfering with its normal operations of producing and distributing goods. 

What Are The Key Risks To Supply Chain Disruption?

The globalization of industry and private business supply chains is one of the leading reasons why many supply chains are fragile. When the various stages of a supply chain are spread around the world, any number of factors can lead to a disruption where just one link can cause the entire chain to suffer a setback. 

Some of the key risks to supply chain disruption are extreme weather events, cyber attacks, labor disputes, global or regional health emergencies, sudden changes in consumer behavior, and conflict between nations. We have witnessed every one of these situations play out over the past few years, disrupting supply chains across many industries.

Awareness of these risks to a global supply chain slowed their rapid growth to some degree, with many industries and businesses realizing that the lower cost and higher efficiency of production in other regions may not be worth the risk to their overall supply chain resiliency. In response to this recognition, efforts to improve supply chain resiliency have become a major effort across industries and nations, as well as for private companies.

Supply Chain Resiliency Initiatives For Today’s Consumer Needs

The most resilient supply chains are those that demonstrate an agility that goes beyond resisting and recovering from disruption: they are designed with modern technologies that help forecast, anticipate, and respond quickly to potential disruptions.

This new supply chain resilience framework includes capabilities for rapid detection, response, and recovery from changing conditions; data-driven control of the supply chain from raw materials to end consumers; diversified sourcing of suppliers; partnering of private and public shareholders; and effective demand prediction and planning. 

With forward-thinking supply chain resilience strategies like these in place, businesses can achieve the agility needed to respond quickly to forecasted changes – and avoid disruptions to better serve consumers.

What Does Supply Chain Resilience Look Like For The End Consumer?

When supply chains for a business are largely interrupted, it can cause scarcity and rapid inflation of goods pricing for consumers, the last link on your supply chain.

Companies that have a robust and resilient supply chain have a distinct advantage, being better prepared to respond to changes in the marketplace or outside disruptive forces. With an optimized and resilient supply chain, consumers are able to purchase efficiently produced, competitively priced, and reliably delivered goods. This builds trust between the supplier and the consumer. Ultimately, the effectiveness of your supply chain leads to satisfied customers that have confidence in your business. 

In the healthcare field, when the end consumer has access to a resilient supply chain for medical supplies, it supports timely and optimal patient care as well as predictable supply budgeting and affordability.

How Does Isikel Bolster Supply Chains For Medical Facilities?

Isikel is a supply chain resiliency solution for medical facilities and large healthcare systems. We have extensive domestic and international supply chain networks, allowing us to consistently provide you with the medical supplies needed to keep your healthcare facilities well equipped at all times.

We have extensive resources for PPE, needles and syringes, specimen collection containers, hot and cold packs, medical gowns, and more. We have our own manufacturing facilities for nitrile gloves, saline flushes, and saline bags. And, if there’s a product or service you need that doesn’t exist, we would love to partner with you to make it a reality. 

Isikel is committed to supporting medical supply chain resiliency here in the US. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help support your healthcare system by providing high-quality, consistently available, and competitively priced medical supplies.