Supply Chain 2021 in 21 Images

If a picture is worth a thousand words then a series of pictures may be the best way to capture the unprecedented year in supply chain that has been 2021.

January

Subaru cars sit in half empty storage lot at Auto Warehouse Co. in Richmond, California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images).

The auto industry has been challenged with many disruptions, chips shortages topping the list. 2021 was also the year that the largest auto OEMs committed to electrification, heralding a new set of strategic risks as supply chains are redesigned and companies (and countries) compete for access to critical inputs such as cobalt. A whitepaper on the necessity and challenges of achieving end-to-end visibility in automotive supply chains can be accessed here .

February

Tending to cattle water and feed needs is a priority during the winter storm. (Texas A&M AgriLife photo by Tiffany Lashmet).

In February, a southern migration of the polar vortex caused record low temperatures, severe winter storms and ice accumulations as far south as Houston, Texas.?The effects were crippling and widespread, impacting the power grid, freezing pipelines, and leading to severe supply chain disruptions across logistics networks, the petrochemical industry and other industries reliant upon it.??A report on the impact that this had on the plastics industry is here .

Cargo ships are seen lined up outside the Port of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2021, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill).

A surge of imports into the US and inland bottlenecks caused a backlog of ships at ports that got worse not better as the year wore on and led to a heated debate as to the causes. Headlines tended to oversimplify a complex and interconnected set of dynamics, particularly as politicians waded in to 'save the day'.

March

An excavator attempts to free the Ever Given after it ran aground in the Suez Canal, Egypt March 25, 2021. (Suez Canal Authority | Reuters).

On 23 March, the Suez Canal was blocked for six days after the grounding of Ever Given, a 400-meter-long 20,000 TEU container ship which was buffeted by strong winds. By 28 March, at least 370 ships were queuing to pass through the canal, delaying an estimated US$9.6 billion worth of trade. Strategic bottlenecks will continue to amplify risk.

Renesas'?Naka factory in Hitachinaka, Ibaraki Prefecture, on March 19. (Photo courtesy of Renesas).

A fire, caused by an electrical fault, struck a further blow to the auto industry that was already struggling to find enough semiconductors given Renesas' significant market share in automotive microcontroller chips. An area of 600 square meters was burned in the fire, with 23 machines destroyed and the ultra-sensitive clean room needed for chip manufacturing was filled with smoke and soot.?The plant returned to full capacity in June.

April

Super Typhoon Surigae, April 17, 2021 (NASA).

Typhoon Surigae was one of the most intense tropical cyclones on record, and the strongest in 2021, reaching sustained winds of 220?km/h.

In August, Hurricane Ida brought the largest economic toll with over $65 billion of damage, particularly to energy and agriculture supply chains. More details on the impact of Ida are here .

May

Lawyers for Royal Dutch Shell take their seats at the start of the court case environmentalist and human rights groups brought against Shell. The Hague, Netherlands December 1, 2020. (Peter Dejong/Pool via REUTERS).

In May the court ordered Shell to drastically deepen planned greenhouse gas emission cuts in a landmark ruling that could trigger legal action against energy companies around the world.?In December Shell shareholders voted overwhelmingly to end the company's dual share structure and move its headquarters to London from The Hague.

This undated photo released by the Tennessee Department of Transportation shows a crack in a steel beam on the Interstate 40 bridge, near Memphis, Tenn. (Tennessee Department of Transportation via AP, File).

The Hernando DeSoto Bridge that carries 41,000 vehicles a day over the Mississippi River between Arkansas and Tennessee was suddenly closed on May 11th after a crack was found in the span. The bridge was reopened in August.

June

A billboard near a DHL facility in Cincinnati (Photo credit DHL).

Many companies went the extra mile to thank front line workers as the pandemic dragged on throughout the year. Automation was a central theme in 2021 but if the year proved anything it was that supply chains rely on people, particularly when the unexpected happens.

July

A huge sinkhole opened up at a gravel quarry south of Blessem.?(Photograph: Rhein-Erft-Kreis Handout/EPA).

From the 12th to the 15th of July, heavy rainfall combined with already saturated soils and narrow valleys to cause severe flooding and considerable damage to infrastructure. Worst hit were the German states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate, as well as in Luxembourg, and along the river Meuse and some of its tributaries in Belgium and the Netherlands.? A more detailed analysis of the impact of the floods is here .

2021 was an active year in supply chain M&A. On July 22, Uber Freight and Transplace announced an agreement for Uber to acquire Transplace for approximately $2.25 billion.? In April, Panasonic announced the acquisition of Blue Yonder, valuing Blue Yonder at USD 8.5 billion. The coming together of the physical and digital worlds will be an ongoing theme.?

August

USCG Cutter James' crew offloading approximately 59,700lbs of cocaine and 1,430lbs of marijuana at Port Everglades. (credit USCG).

Illegal narcotics, worth more than $1.4 billion, was "the largest offload in Coast Guard history." Separately, in July, authorities in Southern California had seized more than 16 tons of marijuana worth an estimated $1.19 billion. The need to keep goods flowing and limited enforcement resources create significant challenges for authorities and shippers in screening containers for illegal contents.

Trucks transport cargo containers at the Port of Baltimore in Baltimore, Maryland. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP).

A surge of imports met constrained capacity stemming from a series of interconnected challenges such as driver shortages, understaffed and inefficient port operations, full warehouses, empty containers in the wrong place, and temporary port closures; some caused by Covid, some existing structural problems. 2022 will see a continuation of this that will ease as importers gain control and confidence over inventory levels.

September

DHL ground crew move a pallet of vaccines to a waiting plane (photo: DHL).

DHL announced that it had safely delivered more than 1 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to more than 160 countries. Similar announcements from UPS and FedEx followed in December.

Firefighters fight to gain control as the Dixie fire burns dozens of homes in the Indian Falls neighborhood of unincorporated Plumas County, California (Credit: Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images).

Increased extreme weather such as droughts and heatwaves strengthened the intensity and scale of wildfires. As of September the National Interagency Fire Center reported that 44,647 wildfires in the United States had burned 5.6 million acres of land. The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre announced that 6,317 wildfires burned 10.34 million acres. 'Fire ' was one of the themes that I wrote about during COP26.

October

Houseboats on the shrinking Lake Oroville reservoir in California (Credit Patrick T. Fallon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images).

Much of the Western half of the United States is in the grip of a drought of historic proportions. For the first time in the history of the Colorado River Basin water sharing agreement, the bureau announced mandatory water delivery reductions. December sees relief from expected high rainfall but with the associated risk of landslides from ground now devoid of protective vegetation. In 2019 Everstream Analytics launched a solution to help companies better understand water risk in their supply chains - more on this is here .

Workers in protective suits clean the contaminated beach after an oil spill in Huntington Beach, Calif., on Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu).

The Coast Guard received the first report of a possible oil spill off the Southern California coast more than 12 hours before a company reported a major leak in its pipeline and a cleanup effort was launched. Coast Guard officials believe a ship’s anchor caught and dragged a pipeline connected to an offshore oil platform. This could have weakened the pipeline, and then a subsequent anchor strike or deterioration of the exposed pipe may have led to the 13-inch split that leaked oil.

Amazon containers being offloaded from a general cargo ship at the Port of Houston. (Credit: Maritime Executive).

Companies sought to take more control over mission-critical supply chain assets and to extend their multi-modal reach. Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot and others chartered ships. American Eagle acquired of AEO. CMA CGM acquired Ingram Micro's Commerce and Lifecycle Services business. Ryder Systems acquired Whiplash. PSA Singapore acquired BDP International. Sherwin-Williams bought Specialty Polymers, Inc. A.P. Moller-Maersk acquired LF Logistics.…the list goes on....and will continue to grow.

A laborer works in a coal yard on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, India. (Credit: CNN).

Energy supply chains are under pressure. India's power plants are running short of coal as power demand has been surging and coal supply was hit by the monsoon season.?China suffered its worst power shortage in decades triggering blackouts for households and forcing factories to cut production while Europe is at risk of power outages this winter due to insufficient gas reserves. More details on the factors contributing to the ongoing energy challenges in India can be found here .

Simon Kofe, Tuvalu's foreign minister, gives a speech to COP26 knee-deep in seawater. (Credit: Courtesy Tuvalu's Ministry of Justice, Communication and Foreign Affairs/Social Media via REUTERS).

20,000 government and business delegates from nearly 200 countries gathered in Glasgow for the COP26 climate summit to drive progress for climate action. The resulting Glasgow Pact offered few wins against expected COP26 outcomes, but there were some signs of progress beyond the negotiation tables.?Expansion of The Race to Zero campaign, commitments from The Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders, $130 trillion in commitments from financial institutions, and the launch of the First Movers Coalition.? I wrote a post for each of the 12 days of COP, a summary of which is here .

December

It seems fitting to end with a picture of an empty shelf. It's not that most shelves were empty, far from it, but it was easy to find and take a photo of an empty shelf and this became the image that often accompanied articles that described how supply chain were 'broken'. 2022 will see companies responding to this in different ways. Many companies are talking about moving from a Just-in-Time to a Just-In-Case supply chain strategy. The winners will steer a course between the two as I discussed with Daniel Stanton as the year drew to a close. Our discussion and commentary from a number of industry experts is here .

2022 will be full of challenges, particularly for anyone involved in the sourcing, making and delivering of goods around the world. I wish you resilience and success in all that you do both personally and professionally.

Postscript (21 + ?):

Thank you for your suggestions as to images that could/should have been included. Here are some of them...

John Deere employees picket outside John Deere Davenport Works Thursday, Oct. 14, 2021, in Davenport, Iowa. (Meg McLaughlin/Quad City Times via AP)

Workforces under pressure or seeing that their employers were under pressure (or both) took strike action including strikes at British Gas, St. Paul Park refinery, Allegheny Technologies, Amazon, Manitoba hydro, Port of Montréal, Warrior Met Coal,?Virginia Volvo Trucks, Frito-Lay, Kitimat smelter, Nabisco, Bergams, H&M Le Bourget, John Deere, Kellogg's, Cádiz metalworkers, Weetabix and Windsor Salt.? Broader workforce protests included French airport strikes, Puerto Rico truck drivers, South Korean delivery workers, Canadian border officials, German national rail, Mexican gas, Spanish national rail, S?o Paulo delivery workers and South African metalworkers.?General national strikes occurred in Iran, Italy, and by Palestinian workers (Thanks to Stephanie Clawson for the suggestion).

A gasoline station ran out of gasoline in Arlington, Va., on May 11 in the wake of the Colonial Pipeline shutdown caused by a cyberattack. (Getty Images)

On May 7, the Colonial Pipeline, that carries about 45% of all fuel consumed on the US East Coast from Houston, suffered a ransomware cyberattack causing the company to close the pipeline to contain the attack. A regional emergency declaration was issued for 17 states and Washington, D.C., to keep fuel supply lines open. Fuel shortages and price spikes were worsened by panic buying. Colonial Pipeline paid the requested ransom of $4.4 million within several hours but was only able to restart operations after 6 days.?Whether financially or geopolitically motivated, cyber attacks on critical infrastructure will continue to happen until it is made less vulnerable. (Thanks to Marka Barbour for the suggestion) ?