Undoubtedly, the manufacturing industry suffered a big blow due to the pandemic. For the last five months, companies decided to shut down the business with the poor on demand for the products. And, with this supply and demand took its halt.
Supply reflects the total amount of a particular product or service available to customers at a given time. Demand is a reflection of the desire of a customer to purchase goods and services; it serves as an indicator of the willingness of a customer to pay a price for a specific product or service.
Under the current crisis of Covid-19, we have seen systemic disruptions in commodity forward flows, particularly life-or-death products, commodities such as medical supplies, along with the manpower services. The whole world was somehow not prepared for the large volume of possible patients being struck with the virus.
Demand for household needs significantly increases as, during the first weeks of the lockdown, a good example of this was the toilet paper demand! It was all over the news and social media, it is by far the most needed commodity, next to the food supply.
In the recent social media post of one fuel company in Asia- the Philippines, Shell Philippines represent companies operating in oil and gas, refining, product delivery, and services, announced the permanent shut down of their Batangas refinery.
“Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global, regional and local economies, and the oil supply-demand imbalance in the region, it is no longer economically viable for us to run the refinery,” Romero said.
This automatically brought unemployment of officers down to the majority of the lower positions- which are the most greatly affected with the said closure.
So how does a company of supplying goods and services be still in the market with the evidence of employee loss?
"AI is the Answer to Greater Visibility and Lower Supply Chain Costs in the virtual maintenance repair and operating- MRO optimization inventory network."
Exact control of materials inventory is a must for optimum business resilience and financial efficiency in today's challenging market environment, but inventory data is still inaccurate. Disorganized, disparate, and inaccessible data has many causes and leads to increased costs in the supply chain. Bad data often leads to unreliable and volatile inventory projections resulting in an ever-growing inventory of obsolete, slow-moving, or over-stocked products. Somewhat more importantly, shortages of parts and the resulting downtime in production can jeopardize product deliveries and customer relationships — and eventually result in revenue loss.
Using AI for inventory materials and data management provides businesses with a way of managing inventory, expense, and response time while removing the manual element of solving real inventory visibility. Understanding the causes of bad data on materials and learning how to correct them helps "integrate" data from inventory systems to provide a more accurate, reliable, and reportable master of materials that supports an efficient supply chain and improves financial performance.