Volcano crisis causes supply chain headache

Vendors reveal courses of action undertaken to minimise possible impact on product availability

Cloud of confusion: vendors have revealed contingency plans were quick to be activated

Vendors have claimed they were quick to spring into action to counteract the possible impact on their supply chains in the wake of the Icelandic volcano crisis.

Comms vendor Avaya's director of global logistics John Gabel claimed that, like the majority of global vendors, his firm is "to some degree dependent on air freight". Some inbound deliveries from contracted manufacturers in Asia and Mexico are particularly dependent on air travel, he revealed.

"The overall impact of the six-day closure of European airspace on our supply chain is limited and we have been working diligently to lessen its potential effect on our customers," he said.

Gabel revealed that pre-arranged contingency plans had swiftly been put into action to negate the impact on "intra-EMEA shipments from our warehouses in Belfast and Frankfurt".

"Air shipments from these locations have been transported on road or barge services with only slightly increased transit times," he explained.

As the problem slowly began to abate yesterday morning, HP's UK channel manager for enterprise storage, servers and networking, Kevin Matthews, claimed the vendor had also activated emergency procedures.

"I can confirm that HP is in business continuity process mode due to the disruption being caused by the Icelandic volcano eruption," he said. "HP's suppliers and logistics partners are activating their business continuity plans to ensure that disruptions to the HP supply chain are minimised."

Avaya's Gabel said the comms firm will follow the situation closely until " the flight backlog is cleared and the number of flights returns to normal capacity". Regular updates from all Avaya's primary carriers are helping decide which course of action to take, he added.

"[We are] actively reviewing the current Avaya in-transit products and, where possible, making arrangements to upgrade critical shipments," he said. "This effort will help ensure that no customer is unreasonably inconvenienced by what is, when all is said and done, an unprecedented incident."