The COVID-19 pandemic brought an unprecedented need for recreational electronics and work-from-home equipment. These things helped people worldwide remain productive and pass the time as they waited out the quarantine and dealt with reduced working hours, furloughs, and unemployment. Manufacturers and warehouse spaces with outdated procedures, unoptimized equipment, and labor shortages struggled to keep up with the outrageous demand for goods. The pipeline collapsed under pressure, leading to global material shortages in many industries.
Increased material prices have compounded the issues of limited inventories. Manufacturing, shipping, and shelving goods has become prohibitively expensive. For example, the prices of electronic components, aluminum, resins, and plastics have increased between 10 and 40 percent. Semiconductors are expected to be hard to find through 2023.
In many cases, even the slightest wrinkle in a manufacturing process can have dire consequences for the rest of the production line. With issues across the industrial space, the supply chain is tangled. There’s a crunch for raw materials, labor, and funds to afford what is available. Addressing these knots is an involved process with no quick solution.