Charlie Grahn is a supply chain veteran who lives in Vancouver, Canada. He also teaches this subject at Langara College and for Supply Chain Canada, and has been a guest lecturer at several institutions including the Banking Academy in Hanoi, Vietnam.
As geopolitical tensions rise and economies become more complex, North American industries are turning away from Asia to secure a better future. Mexico and Central America offer significant benefits for firms looking to keep costs low and mitigate risks stemming from the US-China trade war.
In decades past, supply chains were smooth, inflation levels were low and long-term supply contracts with annual price-adjustment clauses posed few risks. Cut to today’s inflation and supply chain crisis, and it’s clear that ‘vintage’ contracts with built-in cost inflators need to be brought up to date.
The true cause of the disruptions is that most human of errors – believing the past will simply repeat itself. Because today’s supply chains are global, efficient and more perilously constituted than before, new risk mitigation systems are needed.