Supply-Chain Management Update Part II: Healthcare Impact

Posted March 9, 2023 at 9:28 am



CEO Randy Bartsch reviews supply-chain issues facing Ecotex, which operates 10 healthcare plants, including this one in Toronto.

Randy Bartsch, chair and CEO of Ecotex Healthcare Linen Service, Vancouver, Canada, oversees his family-owned company’s 10 healthcare laundry facilities in the U.S. and Canada. Recently, Textile Services Weekly interviewed Bartsch – along with other industry experts – on supply-chain trends in the post-COVID-19 era as background for an upcoming article in Textile Services magazine. Below are excerpts from our discussion with Bartsch, who also is vice chair of TRSA, on today’s supply-chain issues related to healthcare textiles, including isolation gowns and other personal protective equipment (PPE). Questions and answers follow:

Are supply-chain delivery times now mostly back to pre-COVID levels?

For the most part, our supply chain is back on track. Textiles, products and parts shipped out of Asia are coming in a reasonable time. However, parts and equipment that use semiconductors remain a challenge. We especially are experiencing more delays and challenges from our European equipment partners.

Have shipping costs from overseas stabilized or are they still higher than before the pandemic?

Recently, the costs for shipments from Asia have come way down. In some cases, container-shipping costs from Asia are less than pre-pandemic, 2019 numbers. That’s a big shift, and it happened very quickly.

How severe is the ongoing problem with a shortage of computer chips for equipment?

Equipment is highly dependent on electronic controls. These electronic components have become harder to get for repairs and upgrades, and impact the ETA of new equipment. Many of our suppliers, especially out of Europe, cannot guarantee delivery or arrival dates. At Ecotex, we have always maintained a larger critical parts inventory, but many companies have not had that luxury. I think 2023 could be a difficult year for operators doing plant builds or upgrades.

Does coordinating more closely with vendors help to avoid bottlenecks?

Our approach has always been to work closely with our supplier partners. I am not sure that it avoids bottlenecks, but I know that more open and transparent conversations with our suppliers do help our teams to coordinate and prioritize the projects we take on. From experience, what does help move Ecotex up in the queue is paying our vendors promptly. Not everybody does, but if you do, it does make you a more valuable customer.

Have you expanded your base of supplier sources to cope with the recent shortages?

Ecotex has always maintained a strategy of taking a “physical hedge” on textiles and critical parts. That means we physically stock them on-site or make financial commitments to our suppliers to warehouse them for us. We maintain the largest warehouse of available healthcare textiles in Canada at our facility in Toronto. Being in possession of the products helps Ecotex provide our customers with an assurance of supply. In addition, across our processing facilities, we have invested $2.4 million into critical parts, so we can keep our plants operating and functional. I’d easily say that many of the parts today, as we replace them, are worth double what we paid for them. We have found it so valuable to have that inventory on hand.

Could the shortages of barrier gowns and other PPE that hospitals experienced during the pandemic move them and/or policymakers to require more reusable PPE in hospitals as a hedge against another pandemic?

Clearly there is a lot to learn from our shared pandemic experience. In the early days, demand for quality-assured personal protective equipment (PPE) skyrocketed. No one had a grasp of what was happening as this novel coronavirus rampaged from country to country. The simultaneous and global demand surge for single-use PPE items like disposable gowns, found factories – mostly located in China – unable to meet demand. This created a further challenge for accessing single-use, disposable PPE products. Even when available, they were half a world away.

Six weeks into the global pandemic, all of the hospitals we served began to run short on their inventory of single-use, disposable isolation gowns. The lack of critical PPE resulted in several hospitals postponing scheduled surgeries. To address this challenge, many of the hospitals we served immediately pivoted to our Ecotex reusable barrier isolation gown program. People at that point were very flexible to listen to solutions. And we just happened to be at the right place at the right time. You know the old adage, “When doors open, you have to be prepared to go through them.”

Watch for more on supply chain issues in April’s edition of Textile Services.

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