Page 18 - Logistics News - September - October 2021

S UP P LY C H A IN M A NA G E ME N T

Managing the supply chain

during disruptive global events

Clarity between logistic service providers and their customer has never been more important as

COVID-19, natural disasters and shipping chaos land heavy blows, says Bidvest International Logistics.

nsuring continuity of supply in light of recent global by looters in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng, obliterating
and national events has been an unprecedented what little gains had been made in the country’s economic
E challenge for logistic service providers. The upheavals recovery effort.
caused by the coronavirus pandemic have forced entire
countries to reimagine how they deliver resources and There have also been shutdowns to vital shipping lanes
services while simultaneously overhauling business practice and ports, notably the blocking of the Suez Canal by the
for economic sustainability. container ship Ever Given in March and the closure of the
Chinese ports of Yantian in May and Ningbo-Zhoushan,
Coronavirus outbreaks among airport ground and cargo- the world’s third busiest, in August due to coronavirus
loading crews have necessitated that affected members are outbreaks.
placed in quarantine for up to two weeks at a time, leaving
fewer staff to handle cargo. Cargo is also backed up as flights A cyberattack on South African parastatal Transnet
are unable to depart with full loads. As a consequence, the in July paralysed several of the country’s ports for several
uncertainty around schedule availability, workforce on the weeks as well, forcing the state-owned company to declare
ground and increased demand can lead to an increase in force majeure. Taken together, these events have stretched
rates in the market. logistic service providers (LSPs) to the limit.

The world is also having to contend with the growing Congestion, shortage of empty containers, delays,
threat of climate change, increasingly manifesting as rollovers of shipments and ships bypassing ports are an
catastrophic disasters including hurricanes such as the ones unintended consequence of these disruptive events, which
in New Orleans and Texas, wildfires and flooding events that have created a supply-demand imbalance with demand
have destroyed billions of dollars’ worth of infrastructure. outstripping supply.
Typhoons and extreme weather in China have become the
latest challenge to global supply chains, as goods stuck at In some instances, an ocean line service operator
some of the world’s busiest container ports are further deciding to cancel a call or skip a particular port, a process
L O GI S T I CS NEWS destructive natural phenomena and political instability are any given week, there are a number of carriers with blank
delayed.
known as blank sailing, can have dire consequences. On
sailings, reducing tonnage and increasing demand. To put it
Furthermore, the tensions brought on by COVID-19,
into context, 4,000 container slots can get lost in one sailing.
spilling over into violent acts of civil unrest. In South Africa,
an estimated R50-billion worth of damage was caused

16 SEP T E MB E R/O CT O B E R 2021 But this is only one part of the problem. Trucks still need
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