Reports on how the Covid-19 outbreak is affecting supply chains and disrupting manufacturing operations around the world are increasing daily. But the worst is yet to come. Harvard Business Review predicts that the peak of the impact of Covid-19 on global supply chains will occur in mid-March, forcing thousands of companies to throttle down or temporarily shut assembly and manufacturing plants in the U.S. and Europe. The most vulnerable companies are those which rely heavily or solely on factories in China for parts and materials. The activity of Chinese manufacturing plants has fallen in the past month and is expected to remain depressed for months.
Many analyses compare the current epidemic with the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic, which created just a blip in the global financial markets.
Read the full article originally published February 28, 2020 by Pierre Haren and David Simchi-Levi.