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 deliveries is going to be reduced. At the same time companies are going to build up a certain invento- ry as a decoupling buffer. All the same, it is a good approach for companies to reduce stock, to improve quality and to highlight problems, as foreseen in the tenets of lean management. However, as soon as this has been achieved, a certain inventory should be built up to make the supply chain resilient.
Are there positive examples of this?
The pharmaceutical industry already started last year to build up inventory. This was a reaction to the pro- duction bottlenecks in India, ratchetting up stock holdings, to tide them over for at least a couple of months.
Which industrial sectors are still going to act?
This will apply particularly to the automotive, but also to the IT and mechanical engineering industries; in principle every industry that is dependent on silicon
chips. Last summer, the semi-conductor crisis start- ed and since then there have been far more. But the first crisis alone is going to continue, creating inse- curity. This is going to be concern us for months to come; for some products even years.
What is so special then about the semi-conduc- tor?
The current semi-conductor bottleneck demonstrates very clearly what can happen when manufacturers to do not plan in good time and neglect their risk manage- ment. It began last year when the automotive manu- facturers started winding down production because of the pandemic. As a result, fewer chips were planned in. However, at the same time, there was a coun- ter-flow, because many consumers and companies were investing in their digital tools and equipment. In the USA this was exacerbated by emergency aid and in China production resumed relatively quickly. This sent the demand for semi-conductors through the roof.
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