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 don’t deal very easily to long disruptions.
It isn’t the Apple’s or Intel’s of the world that get into desperate problems. Companies like Foxconn, for example, have millions of employees and deals with hundreds of billions of dollars annually. They’ll suffer but they have pretty deep financial foundations.
It is the smaller, low volume production firms that have the most difficulty. Many companies simply didn’t survive the pandemic. They’re out of business. The problem is that there are many unique components that are made by SMEs (Small and Medium sized Enterprises) with a few tens to a few hundred employees. They are specialized and their products are hard to replicate or design out. So the supply chains that rely on these companies are very vulnerable.
When an SME goes out of business, the larger firms might not be able to or even willing to invest in developing replacement companies. And even if they did, it takes a lot of time to build up essentially brand new companies.
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