Supply chain disruptions up 46% year-over-year

California-based supply chain resilience firm Resilinc has tracked nearly 8,000 disruptive events affecting supply chains in the first half of 2022, a 46% increase compared to the first half of 2021.

The data come from the company’s Eventwatch platform, an artificial intelligence-based (AI) tool that gathers information and monitors news on 400 types of disruptions across more than 100 million sources of information, including traditional news outlets, social media, wire services videos, and government reports. Of the events occurring between January and June, 54% were serious enough to create a “WarRoom”—a virtual platform in Resilinc’s dashboard where customers and suppliers communicate and collaborate to assess and resolve disruptions.

The top five disruptive events so far in 2022 are: factory fires, mergers and acquisitions, the sale of a business, leadership transitions, and other factory disruptions. Factory fires are up 131% year-over-year, putting 2022 on track for the most fires ever reported, a trend being driven by gaps in regulatory and process execution as well as a shortage of skilled labor in warehouses, according to the data.

Geopolitical events continue to drive supply chain disruptions as well, rising more than 500% year-over-year. The Russia-Ukraine war was a top disruptor in the first half of this year, due primarily to sanctions and production shutdowns that are driving unprecedented commodity and raw material shortages–disruptions that are likely to continue through the end of the year, according to the data.

Geographically, North America experienced the most disruptions from January through June, accounting for more than 40% of the total alerts issued in the first six months of this year.

Resilinc will release more data from its half-year report later this summer, according to the company.