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Effect of Pandemic Covid-19 to the Operation Management Activities in Industry
Abstract
COVID-19 pandemic has affected the activities related to operations management in the manufacturing industry under the scope of production interruption of raw materials and spare parts, labour, logistics, finance as well as supply and demand fluctuation. Manufacturing industry has faced limitation in the import of raw materials and spare parts which cause delay in manufacturing projects and activities. Due to the pandemic, standard operating procedures are implemented to ensure the labour can work in a safer environment without having the risk of getting infected. Logistics are also adapted with a new practice to ensure contactless delivery of products and items are disinfected before delivering. The pandemic has caused companies to face many financial issues where they are forced to shut down or take loans to sustain their business. Moreover, the supply and customer demand for the products fluctuate as the lifestyle of people changes to adapt themselves to the pandemic. The effects have showed the importance of implementing countermeasures to prepare the manufacturing industry for the post-pandemic world.
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Tantalum’s high melting point and ability to store and release electrical charges have attracted high-tech companies since its usage in capacitors began in the 1930s. During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, daily life relied on electronic equipment, resulting in a surge in demand for electronic and communication gadgets, which could necessitate many tantalum raw materi- als and an assured supply chain. Despite tantalum’s high demand from electronic manufacturers, 5G network systems and electric vehicles are currently added to the tantalum consumer list. The authors have examined three interconnected issues linked to tantalum supply interruption, which has resulted in a growing tantalum scarcity: (1) rising demand for tantalum ores and high-tech equipment while mining activities are in decline owing to the COVID-19 pandemic; (2) tantalum ore price volatility constrains the ore supply chain; (3) the challenge of pandemics that shrink mining activities and handicap supply chain. To address the issue of supply shortage in the long-term, the authors suggest that the concerned parties may adopt new norms of reliable, stable, and transparent supply channels instead of relying on an old uncertain and volatile supply system. The authors also suggest the transformation of central African artisanal and small-scale mining (mainly in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo) into a modern mining system with a new supply channel that can resist existing and future disruptions
The constraints imposed by the pandemic COVID-19 increased the risks of the disruption of supply chains, bringing new challenges to companies. These effects were felt more intensely in less-developed countries, which are highly dependent on imports of products and raw materials. This study aims to assess the impact of supply chain resilience in a less-developed country (Guinea-Bissau) using complex adaptive system theory. We used a qualitative methodology through multiple case studies. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with four companies. The semi-structured script contains questions about supply chain disruptions, vulnerabilities and resilience. The main results show that the companies in Guinea-Bissau, due to their dependence on the outside world and the absence of formal, larger and more diversified supply chains, suffered serious consequences with the disruption imposed by the pandemic. It was also concluded that the more resilient the supply chain, the fewer the impacts of crisis events and that the resilience of companies at this level depends on their obtaining competitive advantages over their competitors. The main practical implications of this study are the need to formalize the supply chain, diversify the supply of services and products of companies dependent on the exterior, adopt metrics that allow for the early detection of situations of supply chain disruption, effectively manage stocks and promote proactive crisis resolution strategies. Studies on the impact of resilience on supply chains in crises are scarce, especially on companies located in underdeveloped countries.
Objectives
We describe the clinical and epidemiological characteristics of children with COVID-19 in the state of Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia in the setting of mandatory hospital isolation and quarantine for all confirmed cases.
Methods
A multicentre, retrospective observational study was performed among children aged 12 years and below with laboratory-proven COVID-19 between 1 February to 31 December 2020.
Results
A total of 261 children were included, 48.7% were males with a median age of 6 years (interquartile range, IQR: 3-10). 151 children (57.9%) were asymptomatic on presentation. Among those symptomatic, fever was the most common presenting symptom. 241 (92.3%) cases were close contacts of infected household or extended family members. 21 (8.4%) had abnormal radiological findings. All cases were discharged alive without requiring supplemental oxygen therapy or any specific treatment throughout hospitalisation. The median duration of hospitalisation was 7 days (IQR 6-10 days). One (2.1%) of the uninfected guardians accompanying the child in quarantine was tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 upon discharge.
Conclusions
COVID-19 in children was associated with mild symptoms and a good prognosis. Familial clustering was an important epidemiologic feature in the outbreak in Negeri Sembilan. Transmission risk of SARS-CoV-2 from children to guardians in hospital isolation was minimal despite close proximity.
The Covid-19 pandemic has affected all areas of our lives. The non-pharmaceutical anti-pandemic measures taken by the governments of the countries to reduce the number of people infected or reverse adverse developments also have a strong impact on the economic side of citizens' lives. The shutdown measures put an end to the activities of many entrepreneurs, who had to lay off their employees. Thus, the Covid-19 pandemic is a major reason behind the rising unemployment. This is also the case in Slovakia. Since March 2020, when the first measures came into force, the registered unemployment rate has been rising. The highest inflow of new jobseekers occurred in April 2020. In this article, we discuss development of the unemployment rate and of the numbers of newly registered jobseekers in Slovakia during the period from November 2019 to October 2020 and examine in more detail the impact of the shutdown measures on the development of the number of jobseekers in Slovakia and on the individual economic sectors according to the NACE classification. It was confirmed that these measures had the greatest impact on the sectors that are also the most publicized, such as the accommodation and food service industry, real estate, administrative and support service industry, arts, entertainment and recreation and other service industries. In these sectors, the number of new unemployment claims increased several times, especially in April 2020, and in some of them, the rate of the new unemployment claims has not returned to last year’s values or those from the beginning of 2020.
From early 2020 onwards, the world has been going through an unprecedented wave of lockdowns, shutdowns, and preventive measures due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It is evident that these have been harmful for tourism, passenger transport, and the service sector in general. However, less is known regarding the implications for manufacturing and logistics, which is the purpose of this research. We concentrate on reporting survey findings from Northern Europe, and mostly from Finland. Based on trade accounts, it is evident that Covid-19 has had significant impacts on Finnish import and export. However, in survey responses, companies report that they have mostly been able to serve customers in a good fashion, and the pandemic has increased transportation costs only moderately. Inventories might experience an increase due to the virus, however, in the longer term they will likely remain at the earlier levels (or slightly increase). Companies are mostly afraid of the effects of the second wave of the epidemic, and are also already thinking about the long-term issues with transportation modes used together with supply chain dependencies. For example, the Chinese and, in part, Russian, markets are increasingly being served by railways during the current decade. For some companies (especially small and medium-sized ones) and foreign trade markets, however, the epidemic era has been very harmful. Therefore, as a conclusion we argue that the pandemic is causing rather asymmetrical impacts on manufacturing and logistics.
The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic spread globally from its outbreak in China in early 2020, negatively affecting economies and industries on a global scale. In line with historic crises and shock events including the 2002-04 SARS outbreak, the 2011 Christchurch earthquake and 2017 Hurricane Irma, COVID-19 has significantly impacted global economic conditions, causing significant economic downturns, company and industry failures, and increased unemployment. To understand how conditions created by the pandemic to date compare to the aforementioned shock events, we conducted a thorough literature review focusing on the presentation of panic buying and herd mentality behaviours, changes to discretionary consumer spending as defined by Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and the impact of global media on these behaviours. The methodology utilised to analyse panic buying, herd mentality and altered patterns of consumer discretionary spending (according to Maslow’s theory) involved an analysis of consumer spending data, largely focused on Australian and American markets. Here, we analysed the volume and timing of consumer spending patterns; the volumes of spending on specific, highly-demanded consumer goods during the investigative period; and the distribution of spending on luxury and non-durable goods to identify the occurrence of these consumer behaviours. Moreover, to identify the presence of the media in influencing consumer behaviour we focused on web traffic to media sites, alongside keyword and phrase data mining. We conclude that, to date, consumer behaviour during the COVID-19 crisis appears to align with behaviours exhibited during historic shock events. We hope to contribute to the body of research on the early months of this pandemic before longer-term studies are available.
Attributed to the recent COVID-19 pandemic, panic buying is now a frequent occurrence in many countries, leading to stockouts and supply chain disruptions. Consequently, it has received much attention from academics and the retail industry. The aim of this study is to review, identify, and synthesise the psychological causes of panic buying, which is a relatively new and unexplored area in consumer behaviour research. A systematic review of the related literature is conducted. The review suggests that panic buying is influenced by (1) individuals' perception of the threat of the health crisis and scarcity of products; (2) fear of the unknown, which is caused by negative emotions and uncertainty; (3) coping behaviour, which views panic buying as a venue to relieve anxiety and regain control over the crisis; and (4) social psychological factors, which account for the influence of the social network of an individual. This study contributes to the literature by consolidating the scarce and scattered research on the causes of panic buying, drawing greater theoretical insights into each cause and also offers some implications for health professionals, policy makers, and retailers on implementing appropriate policies and strategies to manage panic buying. Recommendations for future research are also provided.
Objectives:
Case fatality rates (CFR) and recovery rates are important readouts during epidemics and pandemics. In this article, an international analysis was performed on the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.
Methods:
Data were retrieved from accurate databases according to the user's guide of data sources for patient registries, CFR and recovery rates were calculated for each country. A comparison of CFR between countries with total cases ≥ 1,000 was observed for 12th and 23rd March.
Results:
Italy's CFR was the highest of all countries studied for both time points (12th March, 6.22% versus 23rd March, 9.26%). The data showed that even though Italy was the only European country reported on 12rd March, Spain and France had the highest CFR of 6.16 and 4.21%, respectively, on 23rd March, which was strikingly higher than the overall CFR of 3.61%.
Conclusion:
Obtaining detailed and accurate medical history from COVID-19 patients, and analyzing CFR alongside the recovery rate, may enable the identification of the highest risk areas so that efficient medical care may be provided. This may lead to the development of point-of-care tools to help clinicians in stratifying patients based on possible requirements in the level of care, to increase the probabilities of survival from COVID-19 disease.
We study the effects of financial frictions on firm exit when firms face large liquidity shocks. We develop a simple model of firm cost-minimization, where firms’ borrowing capacity to smooth temporary shocks to liquidity is limited. In this framework, firm exit arises from the interaction between this financial friction and fluctuations in cash flow due to aggregate and sectoral changes in demand conditions, as well as more traditional shocks to productivity. To evaluate the implications of our model, we use firm level data on small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in 11 European countries. We confirm that our framework is consistent with official failure rates in 2017–2019, a period characterized by standard business cycle fluctuations. To capture a large liquidity shock, we apply our framework to the COVID-19 crisis. We find that, absent government support, SME failure rates would have increased by 6.01 percentage points, putting 3.1% of employment at risk. Our results also show that in the presence of financial frictions and in the absence of government support, the firms failing due to COVID have similar productivity and growth to firms that survive COVID.
The effectiveness of a maintenance management system can be measured by the way a function has achieved its intended objectives and generally evaluated based on the quality of the product or service provided, from the perspective of the user. The issues of high casualties in terms of personnel, millions of dollars in losses due to the unexpected shutdown of operations, environmental threats and the impact on the country's income should be addressed. Malaysian Oil and Gas Firm’s maintenance system efficiency practices, technology availability, the selection of suppliers, the influence of preventive maintenance on company performance and the rationale for choosing PM for downstream activities were considered in the interest of the nation. The primary purpose of this study is to use a qualitative methodology to examine PM procedures at a Malaysian oil and gas firm. The oil and gas sector is commonly linked with high-risk, cutting-edge technology projects that can have devastating economic and ecological effects if anything goes wrong. The study utilized the semi-structured interview with 10 identified oil and gas maintenance management personnels such as Managers, Supervisors and Staffs who are attached to Maintenance Department as the ‘gatekeepers’ as they are the one who are directly involved directly in maintenance management activities as well as preparing the reports and data with regards oil and gas companies maintenance management system used for the study. The result from the study stated that the personnel involved in maintenance activities appreciate the practices utilized however with the new methods introduced, the study also proposed, appropriate maintenance implementation as well as the involvement of several parties in aspects of planning and formulating maintenance policy up to the implementation stage in the oil and gas operators’ operation. The study can provide significant implications for theoretical, methodology and management involvement in terms of preventive maintenance contribution to organizational performance. This study analysed the issue raised in the implementation of preventative maintenance, specifically in Turnaround Maintenance in oil and gas company.
The equity variance risk premium is the expected compensation earned for selling variance risk in equity markets. The variance risk premium is positive and shows only moderate persistence. High variance risk premiums coincide with the left tail of the consumption growth distribution shifting down. These facts, together with risk-neutral skewness being substantially more negative than physical return skewness, refute the bulk of the extant consumption-based asset pricing models. We introduce a tractable habit model that does fit the data. In the model, the variance risk premium depends positively (or negatively) on “bad” (or “good”) consumption growth uncertainty.
Design Management is a systematic method of managing design process through integration of multiple stakeholders in a construction project. Its role and activity are about bringing ideas together, connecting, integrating, communicating, innovating and collaborating design activities, people, processes and resources that are related to the project. Project success can be measured either by objectives or subjective measures where both have their own contribution towards project management success and product outcome success. For this study, project success takes into consideration both measures. This is due to design-caused defect was found as the highest contribution in project defect when measured by cost. The aim of this research is to determine the relationship between design management and project success. For this research, the components of this theoretical framework were developed based on the theories and empirical evidence relating to design management and project success measure. The outcome shows that 41processes had been classified into 7 project stages: project initiation, preparation of design outline, conceptual design, detail design development, procurement, construction and project operation and 6 components of success measure had been identified: Objective measure consists of time and cost and subjective measures look into quality, health and safety, functionality and end-user’s, client’s, design teams and construction team satisfaction.
Whereas the economic consequences of the physical distancing measures to control the transmission of Covid-19 are familiar, their effects on people’s mental well-being and the subsequent influence on work productivity are largely unknown. In this chapter, we introduce an agent-based model of a workplace where the mood (motivation to work) improves when the agent is socializing and deteriorates when it is working. No work is done during socialization and the productivity of a working agent is an increasing function of its mood. Moreover, low motivated agents seek company and high motivated agents focus on work. We find that decrease of frequency or quality of the social interactions leads the agents to enter a burnout regime where their motivations diverge to negative infinity, with the consequent vanishing of productivity. This mental breakdown regime is separated from a healthy regime, where the motivation to work is finite, by a continuous phase transition. Since the fraction of working agents, which is the only observable quantity in our model, changes continuously at the transition point, it is nearly impossible to perceive the proximity to the burnout regime. This finding highlights the need of quantitative approaches to study the interplay between mood, behavior, and productivity.
Covid-19 has allowed us to study systemic disruptions that impact entire industries. This paper explores how disruptions start, propagate, and continue over time by examining the semiconductor chip shortage faced by the auto industry during the years following Covid-19 in 2020. First, we carried out a thematic analysis of 209 pertinent newspaper articles. The analysis resulted in a thematic model of such disruptions with the interplay of various factors leading to the prolonged disruption to the auto sector. Second, we present the results from a stylized supply chain planning model run at different times to show how disruptions propagate to the auto and other sectors, causing systemic shortages. Overall, we contribute to the supply chain risk literature by focusing on system disruptions impacting entire industries versus normal disruptions affecting a particular company’s supply chain.
Objective:
To determine ergonomic problems when working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic with regard to musculoskeletal pain, sleep conditions, physical activity, resting, equipment, and productivity.
Methods:
In this cross-sectional study, office workers who switched to working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic participated in an online survey (n = 194). The data were interpreted using descriptive and multivariate regression analysis.
Results:
A significant increase in back pain was revealed (p < 0.001). Significant weight gain was observed (p < 0.001) connected to a decrease in physical activity and an increase in the consumption of junk food. Despite the negative health impact, participants self-reported an increase in productivity.
Conclusion:
The self-reported productivity was higher during the working from home, but a declining trend in employee health can be observed including low back pain and weight gain.
A recent global outbreak of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has led to massive supply chain disruption, resulting in difficulties for manufacturers on recovering their supply chains in a short term. This paper presents a supply chain disruption recovery strategy with the motivation of changing the original product type to cope with that. In order to maximize the total profit from product changes, a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model is developed with combining emergency procurement on the supply side and product changes by the manufacturer as well as backorder price compensation on the demand side. The model uses a heuristic algorithm based on ILOG CPLEX toolbox. Experimental results show that the proposed disruption recovery strategy can effectively reduce the profit loss of manufacturer due to late delivery and order cancellation. It is observed that the impact of supply chain disruptions is reduced. The proposed model can offer a potentially useful tool to help the manufacturers decide on the optimal recovery strategy whenever the supply chain system experiences a sudden massive disruption.
The acute stress of the COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare a series of long-term weaknesses in the US public health system, including the fragility of our supply of essential medications. ¹ The virus produced unprecedented shifts in demand for old as well as new drugs, while simultaneously introducing new uncertainties about the production and distribution of pharmaceutical products. COVID-19–related shortages extended beyond antivirals to include a range of drugs broadly used in intensive care and in general hospital management (Table 1). These shortages point to serious vulnerabilities in the pharmaceutical supply chain that compromise readiness for new waves of the current pandemic and crises that are yet to come. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print January 28, 2021: e1–e5. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2020.306138 )
How might COVID-19 affect human capital and wellbeing in the long run? The COVID-19 pandemic has already imposed a heavy human cost—taken together, this public health crisis and its attendant economic downturn appear poised to dwarf the scope, scale, and disruptiveness of most modern pandemics. What evidence we do have about other modern pandemics is largely limited to short-run impacts. Consequently, recent experience can do little to help us anticipate and respond to COVID-19’s potential long-run impact on individuals over decades and even generations. History, however, offers a solution. Historical crises offer closer analogues to COVID-19 in each of its key dimensions—as a global pandemic, as a global recession—and offer the runway necessary to study the life-course and intergenerational outcomes. In this paper, we review the evidence on the long-run effects on health, labor, and human capital of both historical pandemics (with a focus on the 1918 Influenza Pandemic) and historical recessions (with a focus on the Great Depression). We conclude by discussing how past crises can inform our approach to COVID-19—helping tell us what to look for, what to prepare for, and what data we ought to collect now.
To compete in the current volatile and unpredictable context, manufacturing firms increasingly need reconfigurability, i.e. the capability to adapt the production capacities and functionalities of their manufacturing systems according to evolving product families. To be attractive for practitioners, reconfigurability should require a reasonably low effort. In 2020, the COVID-19 outbreak has quickly twisted market requirements: in an unexpected market context, many firms have been reconfiguring their plants and networks to satisfy, with low efforts, the surge in the demand for very specific products. This paper analyses the reaction upheld by specific Italian manufacturing firms to the outbreak, to derive practical insights on possible ways to achieve reconfigurability in manufacturing. As for results, four insights are provided, regarding: the pre-existing know how held by firms; their network configuration; the modularity of products; and the use of smart and digital technologies. Additionally, remarking the relevance of collaboration between different firms, this paper sows the seeds for linking the reconfigurability theory with the dynamic capabilities theory.
It is critical for the recovery of manufacturing industry against COVID-19 by analyzing its impact from supply chain perspective and exploring corresponding countermeasures. Firstly, this paper studies the initial impact caused by worldwide spread of the coronavirus, such as production disruption of raw material and spare parts, unsatisfied market demand due to setbacks in logistics, increasing bankruptcy risk for small and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs), and demand fluctuation enlargement. Secondly, the aftershock of COVID-19 is analyzed. With the trend of regionalization and digitalization, two-step countermeasures are proposed to help the recovery of manufacturing industry within the pandemic and better prepare for the post-COVID-19 world from supply chain perspective.
The COVID 19 pandemic has become a major threat to humankind infecting millions world-wide. This virus can be spread through breathing, talking. During sneezing, breathing and loud conservation, it releases about 1000 micro droplets which drift in the air. These micro droplets carry many viruses and it might act as a third route of infection for COVID 19 infection. The type of infection is known as micro droplets infection.
Although the importance of labour quality has long been recognised, its impact on productivity or economic growth has seldom been examined. Some studies have attempted to identify how labour quality and economic development are related; however, most of these studies employ proxy variables to represent labour quality. The indicators used in previous investigations did not incorporate many important aspects of labour quality such as the structural changes in the workforce, occupational safety, worker ethics, industrial relations, etc. The objective of this work is to employ a more comprehensive indicator of labour quality to examine its influence on manufacturing productivity. By using the Taiwanese manufacturing industry as an example, in this study we are able to confirm that labour quality is an important contributing factor in explaining Taiwanese manufacturing sector's changes in productivity and its subsequent management and policy implication are then discussed accordingly.
The labor quality index (LQI) not only serves as an important reference for monitoring the progress of the sustainable development
of a country, but it can also serve as an important parameter for economic analysis. To compile such an index for Taiwan,
we conducted two large-scale surveys of 1000 major enterprises and 844 union leaders, respectively, to determine the appropriate
weights for each key factor. We also searched for all the relevant statistics that were used to calculate the weighted sum
of the 25 sub-indexes, in order to compile a LQI for Taiwan’s manufacturing industries covering the period from 1990-2000.
Our calculations show that this LQI rose from 80.2 in 1990 to 117.5 in 2000, which reflected an impressive 37.3% increase
in just one decade. This rate of growth has, however, been slowing down since 1997. Our results indicate that the LQI provides
a valuable indicator for monitoring the enhancement of labor quality in this society.
RETRACTED: the role of Industry 4.0 technologies in overcoming pandemic challenges for the manufacturing sector
- Dadash Pour
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- Basil M Nazzal
- Darras
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Economic impacts of COVID-19 containment measures
- Tom Stannard
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Resetting capital spending in the wake of COVID-19
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The triple economic shock of COVID-19 and priorities for an emergencyG-20 leaders meeting
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