How supply chain mapping affected the Indian organization in Covid-19?
By: Rinkesh Kumar Jha
Tags: Covid 19, Supply Chain, Mapping, Supply Chain Management, India

How supply chain mapping affected the Indian organization in Covid-19?

On 24 March 2020, our Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the nationwide lockdown for 21 days. After that, the whole thing got changed. From the farmer to the businessman, all people affected. Many of them were struggling to get the basic amenities and the companies were struggling for their raw materials. Soon whole supply chain got disrupt. The companies which knew the exact source (i.e. location) of their materials, secured some time to think about alternatives but most of the companies did not know. That’s why many companies shut their plants within one month.

Here supply chain mapping (is a kind of web or layout in which we connect companies and their various suppliers to account for the exact source of materials.) played an important role. By using supply chain mapping, an organization can understand from where the whole supply gets affected. After knowing the affected place or supplier, we can analyze the root cause of supply and can make a decision.

In the beginning, China was the first country that affects the most by COVID-19. Also, we know that China is the largest automotive manufacturer in the world. Due to this, the global supply chain of the automobile industry disrupted. India is one of the largest importers in the world because of which many Indian companies were facing problems to get their raw material or parts by which their production of vehicles plummeted. But some companies knew that situation and used their supply chain map to know about how many parts are coming from China either directly or indirectly. Now you are thinking that every company knows about their supplier so what is the new thing in supply chain mapping?

We know that company recorded the information about the supplier but that is a direct supplier. In supply chain mapping, we created a series of suppliers one behind the other, and make a web. So, we can better understand the exact source of the supplier. In the future, if any problem will occur from the supplier side (can be a direct supplier or indirect supplier) organization can make the decision in advance in such a way that their future supply will not affect. That’s why many leading companies mandate the suppliers to participate in their supply chain mapping efforts.

In the COVID scenario, companies knew about their supplier but they did not know about the supplier of the supplier because of which they are unable to locate the root cause of the problem. Small companies that were taking the material from the Indian manufacturer, was thinking that their supply will not disrupt but they forgot or unable to map the supplier who is supplying the material to their original supplier. At this time, the supply chain played an important role in which we can locate the indirect supplier. Supply chain mapping tells us which things are affecting the most.

As a result, an organization that did not use supply chain mapping in COVID shut its plant early as compared to those organizations that used the supply chain mapping.