Today, there is high demand for replacement and test platform hardware in older machine markets. Organizations are finding it difficult to procure what they need to complete the work on time. The PC environment will be able to assist on this front due to the proliferation of manufacturers and services vendors. One of the most critical issues to deal with is the supply chain. The best way to explain this issue is to think about a manufacturing company.
Most manufacturers only carry enough inventories to sustain production for a few weeks at most.
If they lose just one key supplier and have no way to compensate for this loss, production can be jeopardized. So, If a large manufacturer identified 300 key suppliers, it would then have to think about the supply chain for each of those 300 suppliers. If there were 3-5 key suppliers for each of the manufacturer's key suppliers, the manufacturer must now worry about the Year 2000 health of 900 to 1500 companies. The financial impact of the Year 2000 problem can be significant without appropriate planning. Corporations are faced with potentially large outlays of capita in order to prepare their environments for the change of the millennium.