Supply Chain Troubles Impacting Companies And Consumers Across The World – CBS Dallas / Fort Worth

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – If you’ve been trying to make a big purchase lately, you’ve probably had to wait a long time and get a big price.

The bottlenecks are a by-product of the COVID-19 pandemic that is devastating businesses around the world.

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It started with the toilet paper.

Now there are bottlenecks everywhere – from cars to furniture, from chickens to lumber.

Topo Chico has not been spared either.

“We saw manufacturing plants shut down and there was a slowdown in the movement of goods, a slowdown in movement through the supply chain,” said Jennifer Blackhurst, professor of business analytics at the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business.

Now demand far exceeds supply in a world dependent on global trade, leading to massive backlogs in goods and materials.

“To the point where companies don’t have the capacity to supply the products they need or to source the raw materials they need to make the products,” she said.

Take, for example, the computer chip that automakers need to produce cars.

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Chip delays cripple the auto industry.

And if companies can even secure shipping containers – at skyrocketing prices – there may be no one to get the products.

“There are situations where the product is just sitting offshore waiting to be unloaded,” said Professor Blackhurst.

These breakdowns in the supply chain ultimately lead to the end customer, for example with the Lakewood Smokehouse. It was recently discontinued and the owner cited as one of the main reasons “the cost of everything we buy is 20 to 50 percent”.

At the end of the chain are the consumers.

Between going through the backlog and the Delta variant throwing another curveball, Professor Blackhurst said you should do your Christmas shopping now.

“I just think when the holidays come this year it will be pretty chaotic.”

And, she said, even beyond that.

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“It certainly won’t happen this year, and it will probably be well into next year before we see something go back to normal.”

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