Coming in April: Supply-Chain Lessons from the Pandemic

Posted February 10, 2023 at 1:30 pm



A employee of Royal Basket Trucks, Darien, WI, bolts cart components into a mold for processing in a roto-molding machine at left. With a primarily U.S.-based supplier network, the company experienced few shortages during the pandemic.

For April’s Textile Services magazine we’ll offer readers insights on the supply-chain crisis precipitated by COVID-19 and how operators and suppliers have adjusted their planning in light of the pandemic that began three years ago. Below are highlights from the forthcoming article, titled “Supply-Chain Strategies: Lessons from the Pandemic.”

Paul Rasband, supply-chain director for Alsco Uniforms, Salt Lake City, says his company pursued creative “workarounds” to meet customer demands amid material shortages triggered by the pandemic. “We did many things we would not normally do,” Rasband said. “For example, there was a period where there were shortages of black napkins. To address this shortage, we were buying white napkins and immediately dying them black to meet our black-napkin demand. We would have never considered this approach before COVID.”

Darren Lane, general manager for UniFirst Corp.’s Hammond, IN, branch, said his company’s leadership team mobilized an extensive outreach effort to manage shortages of various garment sizes and styles during the pandemic in 2021-’22. “Our executive leadership team did a phenomenal job of keeping everybody informed of what was going on,” Lane said. He added that plant managers would get information from corporate leaders on alternative suppliers when a particular item was in short supply.

For supplier partner Unitex International Inc., Duluth, GA, careful monitoring of inventories and shipping trends helped the company continue to fill orders throughout the pandemic, says Anwer Shakoor, vice president of Unitex. The company’s stock includes a significant portion of textiles imported from East Asia. The company brings in nearly 100 shipping containers a month from multiple U.S. ports. “During COVID, we never had any shortage issues due to watching congestion and moving shipments to other ports and delivering to our warehouses,” Shakoor said. “We are very proud to say that we never shorted any customers. As a matter of fact, we filled additional big requirements on time as well.”

Another supplier partner, Cindy Lapidakis, vice president of sales & marketing for Royal Basket Trucks, Darien, WI, said that while her company also faced supply-chain challenges, leveraging its mainly domestic supplier base helped safeguard the company against pandemic-driven shortages. “During COVID, having an American supply chain, people start to appreciate that for what it is,” Lapidakis said. “Because when you have that presence in this country, you’re not waiting on products coming from overseas sitting in ports.”

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