I understand how they got delayed initially, but what factors have prevented things from rebounding? For instance, I work in the medical field an am being told some product is “backordered” multiple times a week. Besides inventing a time machine, what concrete things are preventing a return to 2019 supplys?
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Supply chains are designed to be “just in time” and to be as close to capacity as is safe/smart (down time for preventative maintenance, etc, but that’s it). Utilising every last second of production and watt of energy is the way to maximise return on investment in equipment and not be sat on stores of raw materials you could be selling and cash moving.
Now, if you shut down the machine but still have the demand, a backlog builds. When you do restart production and the machines get running, they run at capacity.
Here is the problem, where is the spare capacity to deal with any pent-up backlog of demand on top of the steady state? Answer is it doesn’t exist.
There are some strategies which can be employed. For example, temporarily in the UK, you can now undertake building work on a Sunday. However addressing a 1 year shut down takes 6 years of Sundays even if your builders etc are willing to work 7 days a week especially without adding more builders. BUUUUT this calls on a greater output of raw materials which because of already mentioned reasons there may not be excess production capacity.
It’s all a delicate ballet of materials and resources, which is why operations and logistics roles can fetch a high salary at the moment.
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