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Navigating the Supply Chain Crisis

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Two and a half years since COVID-19 emerged and set off a sea change in how we work and live worldwide, business leaders continue to grapple with the challenges it has created for the global supply chain. Extraordinary congestion at critical global ports, decreased availability of key raw materials and component parts, rising freight bills and an increasingly tight job market have all contributed to the need for companies to create an effective logistics risk management program. Such a program must focus on the detailed assessment of key risks to the supply chain and the creation of mitigation strategies that limit their impact on a company’s ability to satisfy its customers.

How Did We Get Here?

To better prepare an organization for the future, it is important to reflect on events in the past. Some of the critical issues that have contributed to the unparalleled supply chain pressure within the logistics world include:

  • Increasing reliance on foreign suppliers for key inputs, adding to the time it takes to secure goods and also leading to a diverse range of exposures that could impact customers
  • Greater dependence on ever more sophisticated components
  • Labor shortages impacting the transportation and port industries
  • Crumbling infrastructure, especially domestically, contributing to increased time and expense to move freight
  • The continued movement to just-in-time procurement, leading to challenges matching supply to demand as supply chains are strained
  • An increasingly sophisticated electronic network to plan, monitor and maintain the logistics chains, leading to increased vulnerability to cyberattacks

While these issues may have been the fuel, it is certainly the COVID-19 pandemic that was the spark for the current challenges facing the supply chain, as the pandemic affected the global supply chain in many ways. For example, reductions in production capacity overseas due to government quarantines left many components in shorter supply.

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Overseas port capacity was restricted because of quarantines and worker shortages due to illness. Already operating at its maximum after years of limited investment, United States port capacity became overtaxed and less efficient at moving product to final destinations. Additionally, increased consumer demand for foreign produced goods, such as home office equipment, clothing and furniture, further stressed global supply lines.

According to maritime research and consulting firm Drewry, these issues resulted in freight rates increasing by more than 100% year over year, transportation time increasing by almost 50%, and logistics professionals facing greater difficulty guaranteeing the ability to meet their company’s needs. Companies with logistics professionals who developed and implemented supply chain risk management strategies have likely experienced a limited impact in comparison to those without such processes in place.

It’s Not Over Yet

While the majority of the world is now emerging from the most dramatic parts of the unprecedented global shutdown and hope is on the horizon, significant threats remain that require vigilance and focus. This is best illustrated by the impact of the early 2022 lockdowns implemented in parts of China as part of the country’s zero-COVID strategy. With an export volume of more than trillion, what happens in China quickly ripples around the world and impacts every sector.
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From semi-conductors to resins, active pharmaceutical ingredients to petroleum products, China is a critical node in the supply chain of almost every consumer product. With major production and transportation hubs like Guangzhou and Shanghai implementing sweeping lockdowns, companies are once again feeling the pinch in reduced ability to source product and significantly expanded time lines for delivery.

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What Can Be Done?

Business leaders should consider several best practices to minimize disruption to their organization’s supply chain:

  1. Develop risk assessments on primary and secondary suppliers, determining the impact they could have on the company’s ability to produce product.
  2. Create a detailed mapping of critical suppliers that includes manufacturers and service providers, such as freight forwarders, in order to assess catastrophic risk potential.
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    Have multiple suppliers, preferably in multiple geographic areas, as sources of critical raw materials and components. This reduces reliance on any single supplier or oversized exposure to geographical catastrophe risk. For identified critical areas, create a business continuity plan that outlines the process to shift to another resource in a separate geographic area.
  3. Maintain increased inventory on hand versus reliance on “just-in-time” methods, increasing the ability to quickly match supply to customer demand.
  4. Invest in supply chain intelligence data and telematics to increase visibility on goods in transit, which will help business leaders identify a quick and effective response to catastrophes as they occur.
  5. Manage customer expectations in respect to delivery schedules. The old adage “Patience is a virtue” may never have been more apt.

Looking Ahead

Corporate executives now have a heightened understanding of the supply chain’s importance to a company’s bottom line, leaving logistics professionals uniquely positioned to gain investment in resources to help address emerging logistics and supply risks. By conducting regular risk assessments and developing risk mitigation strategies to address the exposure, business leaders can better position their company to limit the impact of supply chain challenges and create a stronger, more operationally resilient enterprise.

What Employers Need to Know About Federal COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates

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In an effort to combat the COVID-19 virus and its subsequent variants, the Biden administration has instituted three important mandates that employers should be aware of as they may impact their business. First, the Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS), issued by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), requires that all employers with 100+ employees mandate vaccination or weekly testing. The second mandate involves federal workers and contractors and requires them to obtain a vaccination without any option for weekly testing. The final mandate was issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and requires vaccination of all healthcare workers at CMS-covered facilities.

OSHA’s Emergency Temporary Standard

The mandate that has the most wide-ranging impact is Occupational Health and Safety Administration’s (OSHA) Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) that calls for employers with 100 or more employees to either require employees to obtain a COVID-19 vaccination or to prove compliance with a weekly-testing program. This ETS is expected to affect over 80 million employees. 

On December 17, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the stay placed on OSHA’s ETS issued by the Fifth Circuit in November. The court held that OSHA does have statutory authority to mandate national vaccines and/or testing for employers with more than 100 employees. Specifically, it outlined that because COVID-19 is a virus that causes bodily harm, OSHA was well within its administrative authority to regulate the health and safety of employees. 

Since the Sixth Circuit’s decision to dissolve the stay, OSHA announced that it will not be issuing citations for noncompliance with the ETS requirements until January 10 and the testing requirements will not be enforced until February 9 with the caveat that the employer must make good faith efforts to come into compliance as soon as possible.

After this ruling by the Sixth Circuit, eight groups challenged the OSHA vaccine mandate and filed emergency applications with the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to stay the mandate again until the case can be heard in the highest court. On December 20, the Supreme Court requested a response from the federal government by December 30. And, on December 22, in an almost unprecedented move, the Supreme Court ordered oral argument on these emergency applications, which will take place on January 7.

Despite the fact that the validity of the ETS is now squarely before the Supreme Court, employers should still operate as if the ETS will go into immediate effect. OSHA has implemented new deadlines to reflect the current status of the ETS.

By January 10, employers should:

  • Track employee vaccination status
  • Create a database detailing vaccination information for each employee
  • Require unvaccinated employees to wear a mask
  • Provide paid time off for employees to get vaccinated and recover

As of February 9, 2022, employers must also require unvaccinated employees must start testing for COVID weekly. Self-administered or self-read tests would not comply. Employers must observe or use a proctor and have employees tested on site, or at a recognized testing facility.

The Mandate for Federal Employees and Contractors

The second mandate stems from President Biden’s executive order that requires most federal employees or contractors to get vaccinated. This mandate does not have a testing option.

On December 7, the U.S. District Court for the Southern Section of Georgia granted a preliminary injunction to temporarily halt the enforcement of the Biden’s administration’s vaccine mandate for federal contractors.The court found that the administration had overstepped the bounds of it authority under the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act 40 U.S.C. 101 et. seq. The injunction effectively prohibits enforcement of the federal contractor vaccine mandate in all 50 states and any territory of the United States. However, on December 17, the Eleventh Circuit, denied the government’s motion to stay. This effectively upheld the injunction. The court found that the government had failed to show that it “would be irreparably harmed absent a stay.”

The CMS Mandate

The third mandate is an interim file rule of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which requires vaccination of all healthcare workers at CMS-covered facilities throughout the United States. The CMS mandate is currently enjoined by court order in 25 states and continues in full effect in 25 other states. After the ruling by the Fifth Circuit in November, however, CMS suspended implementation and enforcement of the mandate pending resolution of the challenges before the Supreme Court.

New York City’s New Biometric Information Law Governs Collection and Use of Consumer Health Data

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For risk professionals, the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the importance of ensuring customer and employee safety measures are incorporated into operations, processes and future strategies. As many businesses reopen from pandemic shutdowns or return from remote work arrangements, some enterprises are now exploring both the effectiveness and the risks associated with conducting health screenings that collect biometric information and other personal health data.

This month, New York City released the Biometric Information Law, a new measure that goes into effect on July 9 and imposes disclosure requirements on businesses that collect consumer biometric information.

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It also sets parameters on what they can do with that information, most importantly, prohibiting the exchange of biometric information for anything of value.

As detailed in recent client notice from the law firm Reed Smith, highlights from the law include:

  • The measure requires a business that “collects, retains, converts, stores or shares biometric identifier information of customers” to place a “clear and conspicuous sign” near all consumer entrances that, in plain language, discloses the collection, retention or sharing of biometric information.
  • It stipulates that it is unlawful to “sell, lease, trade, share in exchange for anything of value or otherwise profit from the transaction of biometric identifier information.”
  • It establishes “an ‘aggrieved’ consumer’s private right of action,” meaning that “[a]ny person who is aggrieved by a violation by this chapter is entitled to commence an action to enforce its protections.”

There are key exclusions, however, as “governmental agencies, employers, or agents” are expressly excluded from compliance with any provision.

New York is not the only state to enact a law attempting to govern how organizations can use biometric information. Arkansas, California, Illinois, Texas and Washington have also set guidelines for businesses.

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Indeed, the recent Risk Management Magazine article “Preparing for Biometric Litigation from COVID-19” addresses the imminent and critical questions businesses must answer when collecting and handling such data.

Sensitivities surrounding the confidentiality of biometric and other health information are not new in certain industries, such as healthcare. Further, even before COVID-19, risk professionals were already grappling with the risks associated with new biometric technologies and the data collected, especially with regard to facial recognition, wearables and even the rise in popularity of telehealth.

Now, with every organization on high alert about infectious diseases and how quickly they can interrupt business, health and safety have become top priorities for every risk professional in every sector.

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As risk professionals look to new technology for help with these concerns, monitoring the emerging regulation and security risks around health and biometric technology will become increasingly critical in balancing benefit and risk to their organizations.
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Data security will continue to remain a significant threat, but New York’s Biometric Information Law should serve as a reminder that what the organization does with that data can also have a lasting impact on the enterprise’s reputation and consumer trust.

For more information to help risk professionals manage new health technology and data, check out these articles from Risk Management Magazine:

Preparing for the Next Stage of the COVID-19 Pandemic at RIMS Content Roundtable

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In last week’s “RIMS Content Roundtable: COVID-19 Vaccines and Distribution,” a group of RIMS members gathered for an exclusive Q&A with Dr. Adrian Hyzler, chief medical officer at Healix International, who focused on progress with COVID-19 vaccination efforts and moving toward a “next phase” of the pandemic.

“Where we’re headed is: this pandemic will end—all pandemics end—but it doesn’t end all of a sudden, it goes out with a whimper…it sort of just seeps away at different rates around the world,” Hyzler said, noting the rates of vaccination and controls implemented country by country will curb the coronavirus at different paces. “But it’s now going to be an endemic disease, meaning it’s something we live with. We’re not going to get rid of this disease.”

He believes recognition among public health experts that COVID-19 will become endemic rather than be eradicated prompts new conversations about expectations and preparations around the world.

“The new dialogue is: what is the acceptable level of COVID and what is the acceptable level of deaths from COVID? Because COVID is a respiratory disease and people die of respiratory diseases every year, especially in winter. That’s something we live with,” Hyzler said. “We’re going to have to get to a point where there are going to be people who die from COVID every year, but they’re not going to overrun hospitals, and they’re not going to affect care of other diseases.”

Getting to the stage of “a disease we live with” requires mass vaccination, and he stressed the importance of the widespread effort to encourage people to get COVID vaccines as soon as possible. Scientists are not yet sure what percentage of the population will need to be fully vaccinated to control the pandemic sufficiently and, he said, “that’s vaccinated across the whole population evenly, and that’s not the case—we know there are communities where they are vaccine-hesitant, we know there are religious groups that are not as confident about the vaccine, and they tend to cluster, so those are always ready for outbreaks.”

Rather than discuss the sometimes controversial or scientifically debatable concept of “herd immunity,” Hyzler encouraged thinking about “community immunity.”

“‘Community immunity’ is good because it’s more about what we can do for each other,” he explained. “Getting vaccinated, for a 28-year-old, is not necessarily about that person, it’s about what it can do for the community—the older people, the people who have preexisting conditions that make them vulnerable.”

This kind of community orientation and widespread adherence to best practices will be critical in getting to any next phase of the pandemic, and to staying there. Reflecting on his experience of the acute lockdowns implemented in the U.K., for example, Hyzler stressed the lessons learned about the impact of mass adherence to mitigation and prevention measures. “Even with the variant that’s come out here that is very transmissible and has become common in the States, we’ve shown that non-pharmaceutical interventions—which are masks, distancing, isolation, hygiene—they work,” he said.

Many of these non-pharmaceutical interventions will not be going away any time soon—indeed, they may be just as critical moving forward. Hyzler predicted, “I think, into next year, we may still be wearing masks in many situations and there may be a great move to more things outdoors, since we know how much safer that is, and I think we’ll have learned a lot of things from this… Hopefully we’ll also be more ready for something that will happen again.”

As the world moves toward mass vaccination to help curb COVID-19, companies should be preparing for the next stage of the pandemic and creating detailed plans for safely returning to work. To that end, Hyzler noted some large private companies have publicly offered resources to help other enterprises protect employees and operations amid the pandemic and prepare for a return to workplaces.

For example, Ford has published two versions of a “Return to Work Playbook,” one for manufacturing and another for non-manufacturing companies. According to Ford, in addition to providing these documents to employees, “the company is also providing a copy to its suppliers, business partners and relevant third parties to ensure they are all aware of its health and safety practices when they are on site at Ford facilities or are interacting with Ford personnel.” Companies outside of Ford’s supply chain can also benefit, however.

“Add in some CDC advice, and look at what people [around you] are doing, because there are little things you can do that are very specific to your area or your workforce,” Hyzler recommended. “Then, take the information [from the playbook] that’s useful and mold it into a mini version of a playbook, if you’re a smaller company.”

In addition to the Ford playbooks Hyzler mentioned, check out these publicly available resources from the private and public sectors that may offer help in managing COVID-19 risks and creating a return-to-work plan for your enterprise:

Ford’s Return to Work Manufacturing Playbook [PDF]
Ford’s Return to Work Non-Manufacturing Playbook [PDF]
IBM’s Return to Workplace Playbook [PDF]
Kaiser Permanente’s COVID-19 Return to Work Playbook
CDC’s Guidance for Businesses and Employers Responding to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
CDC’s “Daily Activities” Guide for Returning to Work
OSHA’s Protecting Workers: Guidance on Mitigating and Preventing the Spread of COVID-19 in the Workplace

Participants in the roundtable event were able to debrief with fellow risk professionals in breakout rooms, sharing impressions from the session and experience addressing related risks within their own organizations. For more opportunities to discuss return-to-work plans, vaccine considerations and other COVID-related risks with other risk professionals, all RIMS members can continue the conversation on Opis, the society’s community engagement and networking platform. Among almost 200 education sessions, the upcoming RIMS Live 2021 virtual conference will also offer dozens of COVID-related education and networking events from April 19 to 30, and registration is now open. To hear more insights directly from Dr. Hyzler, you can check out his appearances on the RIMScast podcast.