How Can Electronics Manufacturing Companies Do For COVID-19?
Electronics Manufacturing Companies Got Stuck by COVID-19
The electronics manufacturing companies have been hit by COVID-19 (Wuhan Coronavirus) outbreak, which is expected to have a negative impact on the global economy.
As the main basic electronics components origin, many major electronics manufacturing companies have facilities in China, including Wuhan, the epicentre of the novel Coronavirus. Downstream which, lots of China native factories produce printed circuit boards and PCB assembly for the global electronics markets.
The COVID-19 outbreak got China basic electronics components supply chain stuck. Currently there is still a quarantine in place for much people across China, which left them away from the production lines, the manufacturing capacities recover slowly.
The good news is that COVID-19 has been contained in China, the electronics components supply is expected to recover quickly, but the bad one is there seems to be a outbreak in other regions except China, inclduing another electronics components manufacturing power - South Korea.
March 3, the number of confirmed COVID-19 patients growed to 4,812 in South Korea, while in Italy of Europe, the 2036th patient appeared.
The current situation is still quite uncertain and the inflection point is hard to be anticipated, as a global electronics manufacturing company, we are not able to curb the virus, but should try the best to keep our basic electronics components supply chain active and gradualy recover the capacity.
The Electronics Manufacturing Companies Can Do Something
Resume partial work online. There are something documental work should be done before electronics production, which can be settled down first online, including prodution schedules, the expected shortage of components, redistribution plan and alternative analysis.
Keep in touch closely with the upstream partners. Evaluate and re-leverage their capacities and inventory. Companies that fail to do this are less able to respond or estimate likely impacts when a crisis erupts. After the 2011 Sendai earthquake in Japan, it took weeks for many companies to understand their exposure to the disaster because they were unfamiliar with upstream suppliers. At that point any available capacity was gone.
On-call cutomer services. In such a disaster, passing on accurate and on-time information is one of the most important things, with which, the downsteam electronics markets can make their the changes and pre-arrangements, avoiding basic electronics components supply chain outage.
For The Future
Create a comprehensive, emergency operations center. Most organizations today have some semblance of an emergency operations center (EOC), but in our studies we’ve observed that these EOCs tend to exist only at the corporate or business unit level. That’s not good enough — a deeper, more detailed EOC structure and process is necessary. EOCs should exist at the plant level, with predetermined action plans for communication and coordination, designated roles for functional representatives, protocols for communications and decision making, and emergency action plans that involve customers and suppliers.
Designing for response. The coronavirus story will undoubtedly add to our knowledge about dealing with large-scale supply chain disruptions. Even at this relatively early stage, we can draw important lessons about managing crises of this nature that should be applied down the road.
Understand your critical vulnerabilities and take action to spread the risk. Many supply chains have dependencies that put firms at risk. Now obvious examples is that Apple’s and many auto OEMs’ dependency on the basic electronics components from China, they are suffering a series of shortage during COVID-19 outbreak.
Create business continuity plans. These plans should pinpoint contingencies in critical areas and include backup plans for transportation, communications, supply, and cash flow. Involve your suppliers and customers in developing these plans.
Disasters such as COVID-19 outbreak are impossible to anticipated, but the global electronics manufacturing companies can prepare for any misfortune in advance. Take action at the beginning to minize the negetive impact of any unexpected situation on the basic eletronics components supply chain.
