Supply Chain Challenges and Solutions amid COVID-19 (2025)
Chapter: 1 Background
CHAPTER 1
Background
Research Objectives
In the face of growing uncertainties, supply chain resilience is coming to be seen as increasingly important. Vulnerabilities revealed during the COVID-19 pandemic have highlighted the fragility of the global supply chain but have also spurred research and uncovered effective practices and strategies to mitigate and manage supply chain disruptions. The insights gleaned from this research offer valuable guidance for strengthening supply chains and mitigating the economic impacts of future disruptions.
Transportation agencies and commercial businesses will continue to experience unanticipated supply chain challenges. Paramount to meeting these challenges is the need to balance supply chain resilience with limited resources. Achieving this balance requires stakeholders to assess supply chain performance and the risks of potential disruptions or opportunities, recognize their influence, and prioritize initiatives for response accordingly.
This report provides an overview of the current supply chain framework, describes reported challenges to its operation, and offers promising practices for mitigating disruption. Case studies provide reference to lessons learned by various stakeholders during disruptive events. This report focuses on supply chain operations during the COVID-19 global pandemic (2020–2023); however, the lessons learned and the effective practices identified have broad application to ongoing supply chain operations.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for supply chain resilience. Case studies, encompassing various transportation modes (including maritime, pipeline, rail, and highway), play a vital role in understanding supply chain disruptions and formulating effective responses. The most influential published reports, determined through citation and network analyses, focus predominantly on building resilience into freight delivery systems and offer strategies for managing disruptions, including diversifying supply and demand, localizing sourcing, sharing information, creating online delivery systems, and leveraging new technology for data collection. However, such an approach often necessitates the collection and analysis of vast amounts of data, posing a challenge for researchers and practitioners alike.
Several sources emphasize the importance of understanding the economic impacts of transportation disruptions on supply chains. Disruptions like maritime port closures or disruptions to highway or rail networks can have cascading effects throughout the supply chain. The geographic and temporal scale of the disruption significantly influences the magnitude of the effect on the economy.
Scope of Study
The objectives of NCHRP Project 23-13(04), “Scoping Supply Chain Challenges and Solutions amid COVID-19,” were (1) to develop a resource for state and local government agencies to plan for future supply chain disruption, and (2) to create a toolkit to help practitioners identify effective practices associated with mitigating supply chain challenges and leveraging opportunities. The primary deliverable is NCHRP Research Report 1154: Supply Chain Challenges and Solutions amid COVID-19. This report documents (1) supply chain challenges, opportunities, effective practices, and lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2023), and (2) initiatives underway in public and private industry that provide solutions to address critical supply chain challenges at the state and local levels.
