The COVID-19 pandemic continues to cause major disruption to supply chains around the world. While a global pandemic is not your typical supply chain event, the root causes of the current supply chain issues are not limited to just pandemic stress.  Post-pandemic demand, transportation breakdowns, workforce shortages, and raw material scarcities have further exposed existing supply chain vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, the gear manufacturing supply chain is not immune to these challenges.   

In fact, a recent Accenture study on “Supply Chain Disruption” reported that “94% of Fortune 1000 companies are seeing supply chain disruptions from COVID-19” and “75% of companies have had negative or strongly negative impacts on their businesses.”   

Over the past several months, Croix Gear & Machining has been conducting in-depth conversations with key OEM customers to better understand what they are experiencing and what we can do to combat it. Not surprising, the single most challenge coming out of COVID-19 is that supply chain disruptions are preventing OEMs from fulfilling customer orders, creating inefficiencies on their manufacturing floor, and ultimately putting their business at risk. In addition, the recent trend of offshoring gear manufacturing only exacerbated the problem, in that they failed to establish secondary domestic suppliers as a “safety net.” In the near term, procurement leaders are requesting better information so they can make the quick, better-informed decisions needed to sustain manufacturing operations. In the long-term, they are looking for “outside the box” thinking to improving gear supply chain relationships that can provide resiliency, agility, and reliability.   

In the coming weeks, leading up to the 2021 Motion + Power Technology Expo, the company will share more about the best practices they have discovered to help meet these challenges. 

To discuss navigating your particular supply chain challenges, be sure to visit the Croix Gear & Machining Team at the Motion + Power Technology Expo Booth #2735. 

AGMA's Motion + Power Technology Expo 2021 takes place September 14-16 at America's Center, St. Louis, MO. Join many of the gear and power transmission vendors and customers face-to-face this fall here.