Biden’s review of US supply chains stirs experts from the procurement world to react

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随着世界上的世界总统乔拜登最新执行订单(EO) on domestic sourcing of currently imported critical components, primarily computer chips and medicines, to help the US become less dependent on foreign supplies, Spend Matters turns it eye to the general thoughts of the procurement sector.

The executive order (a means of issuing federal directives by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government) is intended to help protect the US economy from the supply shortages experienced during the pandemic that forced car manufacturers to cease production owing to lack of semiconductors, left healthcare workers without crucial PPE and spread concern over the availability of critical drug ingredients for the pharmaceutical industry. A hundred-day review of critical supply chains will now begin.

Our chief research analyst recently penned some thoughts onLinkedIn,这引发了一个有趣的字符串dialogue: Various people from the procurement world chipped in with mixed feelings about the effectiveness of this motion.

来自采购的声音

Robert Handfield PhD, author at Supply Chain Resource Cooperative and Bank of America University Distinguished Professor of Supply Chain Management at the North Carolina State University Poole College of Management, gavea reality check on supply chain vulnerabilities, in which he explains that:

“The 100-day review will be followed by a longer yearlong review of a broader set of critical supply chains, including the energy sector, personal protective equipment, agricultural products, the transportation industrial base and the public health and biological preparedness industrial base.” (Biden says this will “help address the vulnerabilities in our supply chains across additional critical sectors of our economy so that the American people are prepared to withstand any crisis and rely on ourselves.”)

Handfield takes the stance that the statement “reveals a profound naiveté of supply chains, which is common in both politicians and the public. Most individuals’ understanding of the complexity of global supply chain designs is limited, and few realize that re-shoring (although not directly referenced in the EO) all manufacturing back to the US with the flip of a switch (or the passing of an Executive Order) is impossible in the context of global trade …”Read his full thoughts here.

Peter Smith- 作者Bad Buying, ex CIPS President, formerly Spend Matters Europe MD and one-time procurement advisor to the UK government — echoed a similar sentiment when talking to us:

“当然很高兴看到政治领导人思考供应链风险和恢复力的问题。当涉及关键商品或材料或食品或军事装备时，一个国家应该更自足的想法 - 似乎是明智的。但实际上，存在真正的问题和障碍。例如，在去年短缺之后，我们已经开始在英国制造更多PPE。一些当地公司已经投入了额外的能力。但现在市场已经恢复到了更正常的定价，医院是否会准备为英国制造的面具和礼服支付溢价？报纸开始抱怨在英国商品上的纳税人浪费纳税人的金钱，多久？在半导体等领域，您如何说服业务对新能力进行重大投资，除非您保证资金或未来的订单流，与全球市场定价相比，再次可能非常昂贵。我确实相信政府必须仔细考虑这些问题，并且需要一些改变，但是认为有简单的解决方案是天真的，或者任何国家都可以迅速使所有批判性供应链无风险的解决方案。“

Dr. Kristina Soukupova, President at Defense and Security Innovation Hub and Aerospace and Defence Practice Director at I3CAS, added that “this is nothing new in the world of defense. In case of war, for example, a country doesn’t want to be reliant on someone else.”

“It’s a matter of national security,” she tells Spend Matters. “On the one hand, you want to be self-sustainable. You can’t have another country providing you with weapons, radios, etc. On the other hand, there is not a single country in the world that is actually self-sufficient when it comes to military equipment. It’s more a question of who do I buy from? Who do I trust?”

“This is when it does become a political question rather than an economic one,” she said in response to the argument that continuity of supply and national security should never become partisan debates.

“So this is why these supplies can be very expensive, because you want to buy from your allies, not your enemies. When it comes to certain technologies you need to know exactly what’s in them and where the components came from. You cannot risk opening up your systems to countries that know them better than yourself. So it’s a very problematic balance, and it boils down, in many cases, to a political decision that is not always about the price.”

“问题，从我可以看到的问题，我们无法控制对我们复杂和复杂的系统中最后一个组件的可见性。当我们购买电脑时，我们知道芯片在中国制造 - 这就是它的方式。如果您将计算机芯片放在可以杀死人的武器系统中，则希望拥有完全的可见性和控制 - 这是一个可能性的问题。这种困境在安全竞技场之前已经提出，但最终有人耸了耸肩，因为中国人是可以以一定价格制造筹码的主要制造商。Even with home-grown technology in the shape of start-ups, the military is reluctant to buy emerging tech from them, because they can’t be sure the start-up will survive the next five years, and they need their systems to be maintained for longer than that. So from asecurity point of view，只有在美国制作的筹码，它才能完美的意义，只有那么你会知道是否有任何不安全感。“

许多人感谢我们对这些洞察力评论的贡献者，我们将在第二篇文章中继续我们的“声音”主题，当我们向其他专家询问他们的意见：如何执行这些行政订单倾向于执行;审查可能需要什么样的形状;谁负责它;对机构的影响;谁将进行评估;联邦政府是否有恢复力框架，以及更多。我们当然也欢迎您的评论。