GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – From rising prices on many products, to shortages of chips for new vehicles to everyday consumer goods, supply chain issues continue for people around the country – and right here in Northeast Wisconsin.
While the pandemic was a factor, UW-Green Bay Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management Amuyla Gurtu says the issues are a cumulative effect from more than just COVID.
“We have been pushing globalization without looking at the bottlenecks and capacity constraints…It was kind of a disaster waiting to happen,” Gurtu said. “COVID is not the only reason. I mean, it’s partly to blame, but this would have happened otherwise also because of any other problem that took place like it took place last year in the Suez Canal.”
Gurtu adds that something that is grown locally and sold in places like a farmers market may not have been impacted much, but farmers themselves are affected because the supply chains of products they use to grow the produce has been disrupted.
“I would be surprised if there’s even one person who could say ‘I’m not affected by a major disruption in supply chains,'” Gurtu said.
Last month, President Joe Biden ordered two California ports to run on a 24/7 basis to resolve bottlenecks. Those two ports handle approximately 40% of shipping containers entering the U.S., but Gurtu says only so much can be done to ease the problems.
“COVID protocols limit what you can do, how many hours, the sanitization, those types of things,” Gurtu said. “The next logical step is moving it to trains or semi-trucks, but there are fixed numbers and how many hours they can run those are limited. That’s the bottleneck right now.”
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