TWO YEARS OF GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN CHALLENGES: HOW CAMFIL ENSURES CLEAN AIR DELIVERIES

Stockholm, Sweden, 13 June 2022 - The WHO declared COVID-19 “a Public Health Emergency of International Concern”on the 30^th of January, 2020. Just days after WHO’s announcement, Camfil – a world leader in air filtration – set up a multidisciplinary supply chain task force, made up of representatives from key areas within the company.

“The task force was formed quickly so we could be proactive and get ahead of the anticipated supply chain challenges. We kick-started the work by assessing the current situation and by asking ourselves what needed to be done and how to do it”, says Christian Olsson, Vice President Group Sourcing, Camfil Group.

Since then, the members of the task force have worked closely together with key company functions to achieve one single mission: to combat and mitigate disturbances in Camfil’s global supply chain. Disturbances primarily caused by the pandemic, but also compounded by ice storms and tornados in the U.S., tropical storms in Asia and a ship blocking the Suez Canal in Egypt.

“We have had 130 task force meetings since February 2020 and initiated 17 major supply risk mitigation projects and 50 minor ones. This whole experience has been like running marathon after marathon”, says Christian Olsson.

He goes on to describe what sounds like a giant puzzle with many moving parts where conditions often changed very quickly.

“Our main focus has been on securing shipments of raw materials from our suppliers to our 31 factories worldwide to ensure continued deliveries of air filters.”

This has been accomplished by utilising a number of strategies:

• Sourcing materials from both existing and alternate suppliers.
• Distributing raw material orders between different suppliers’ factories. It could mean, for example, that 80 % of an order was placed at one supplier’s factory and 20% at another.
• When transport disturbances have been extra challenging, the same full purchase order has sometimes been placed with two different suppliers to ensure delivery of materials.
• Building up of additional buffer stocks both at Camfil locations and supplier locations.

Camfil has also opted to issue long-range purchase orders to certain suppliers providing them with extra support in their planning process and material allocations during these uncertain times. (Long-range purchase orders means a commitment to buy from a supplier for a long period of time.)

Another key success factor has been that Camfil has factories in many different geographical regions around the world. This offers an ability to shift production from one factory to another so that products can be manufactured closer to a particular local market. The fact that several factories can produce the same products also creates a redundancy effect – meaning that if one factory is not able to deliver a product, another one can do it instead.

“It’s been a high paced teamwork process where we have collaborated in new ways with our suppliers. And where our factories have worked closer together than ever. All with the purpose of fulfilling our customers’ need for clean indoor air”, says Christian Olsson.

He points out that even though the pandemic has posed great challenges, it has also led to significant improvements and investments in Camfil’s operations that equal at least five to seven years of a normal development pace.

“We have left no stone unturned. This whole experience has sparked a lot of new ideas and taught us many valuable things about ourselves as a company. It has brought all of us at Camfil even closer together. The disturbances in the supply chain are not quite over yet, but we are better equipped than ever to handle these kinds of challenges going forward.”