White House Council on Supply Chain Resilience is introduced by the Biden Administration

The White House this week introduced a new series of supply chain-focused initiatives through its newly-established White House Council on Supply Chain Resilience, which it said is comprised of nearly 30 actions focused on strengthen the country’s supply chains.

The White House said that this effort is focused on boosting supply chains considered critical to the country’s economic and national security while also boosting the economy on various fronts—including: enabling reliable deliveries for businesses; strengthen U.S. agriculture and food systems; and also support good-paying union jobs—and also “support the enduring reliance of America’s critical supply chains.”

“We’re doubling down on our work at home—starting right here, right now — with the launch of a new Council on Supply Chain Resilience,” said President Biden at a press briefing yesterday. “I’m charging this group to ensure that our supply chains remain secure, diversified, resilient…into the future.  I’ve also directed my Cabinet to create an early warning system that uses data to spot supply chains risks to our economic security, our national security, our energy security, and our climate security.”

This is far from the first supply-chain focused initiative under the Biden administration. Shortly after he was sworn into office, the White House signed an Executive Order on America’s Supply Chains and established a Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force, at a time when supply chain-related challenges and issues were significantly impacting the economy, while inflation rose, goods were in short supply and container vessels endured long waits to unload goods on shore.

Other subsequent key supply chain-focused efforts heralded by the White House, following that executive order, included the CHIPS and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which the White House said collectively helped to “unsnarl supply chains, re-normalize the flow of goods, and lower inflation.”

What’s more, in recent years, the White House has taken steps in other ways to smooth out supply chain-related issues, including an October 2021 Executive Order focused on pandemic-related delays and inefficiencies worsening in advance of Peak Season; a July 2021 Executive Order addressing competition within the ocean cargo and freight railroad sectors; an October 2021 “Summit on Global Supply Chain Resilience” with the European Union and 14 other nations “to foster greater international cooperation on near-term supply chain disruptions and chart a course to strengthen and diversify the entire supply chain ecosystem over the long term—from raw materials, intermediate and finished goods, manufacturing, to shipping, logistics, warehousing, and distribution”; and a June 2021 rollout of the White House’s Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force, which focused on providing a whole-of-government response to address near-term supply chain challenges to the economic recovery, led by the Secretaries of Commerce, Transportation, and Agriculture, with a “focus on areas where a mismatch between supply and demand has been evident,” among others.

The White House Council on Supply Chain Resilience’s action items are wide-ranging, addressing various issues domestically and internationally, including:

• $196 million in USDA investments focused on strengthening domestic food supply chains;
• the first-ever National Defense Industrial Strategy published by DOD, which will support defense-critical supply chains;
• the launch of the first quadrennial supply chain review, which will be completed by the Council by December 31, 2024, and update criteria on industries, sectors, and products defined as critical to national and economic security;
• the launch of the DOT Multimodal Freight Office responsible for maintaining and improving the condition and performance of the nation’s multimodal freight network;
• new milestone for FLOW, the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Freight Logistics Optimization Works Program, a public-private partnership that brings together U.S. supply chain stakeholders to create a shared, common picture of supply chain networks and facilitate a more reliable flow of goods, in which participants are beginning to utilize FLOW data to inform their logistics decision making, helping to avoid bottlenecks, shorten lead times for customers, and enable a more resilient and globally competitive freight network through earlier warnings of supply chain disruption;
• use of the Defense Production Act to make more essential medicines in America and mitigate drug shortage;
• A Supply Chain Data Summit, which will convene a diverse array of public and private stakeholders in 2024 and gather expert input to inform supply chain risk assessment models and tools to facilitate expanded sharing of data and analytic capabilities; and
• the development of several cross-government partnerships to improve supply chain monitoring and strategy, including the Department of Commerce’s new, first-of-its-kind Supply Chain Center is integrating industry expertise and data analytics to develop innovative supply chain risk assessment tools, among others

Feedback on the White House Council on Supply Chain Resilience varied.

Brooks Bentz, LM columnist and supply chain consultant, viewed his reaction to it as pretty straightforward

“While the write-up is long and expansive, the best part of this, should it prove to be the case, is the apparent willingness to engage key stakeholders,” he said. “I defy anyone to find a company that doesn’t want more supply chain resiliency.  The basic premise should be to create a program that will help companies by listening to what obstacles they face, particularly those imposed by government, and helping to remove them.  It can also provide benefits by creating a forum and platform for helping facilitate the setting of certain standards relating to data management so that intra- and inter-supply chain communications can be improved and real or close to real-time status and visibility can be achieved.”

And Ben Gordon, founder and managing partner of Palm Beach, Florida-based Cambridge Capital, and managing partner of BG Strategic Advisors (BGSA), had a different take, calling out the White House in not turning to expert supply chain practitioners for guidance on it.

“I speak regularly with a lot of the top supply chain CEOs and professionals. None of them has been consulted for this Biden supply chain initiative,” he said. “If I were advising the administration, I would encourage them to speak with supply chain CEOs from across warehousing, freight forwarding, truck brokerage, distribution, and technology. What I think the administration would learn is that we are far from successful when it comes to U.S. Supply chains. Our weaknesses include tremendous volatility, which is reflected in the record number of bankruptcies in trucking and freight brokerage this year. They also include extremely high dependence on markets that are often not aligned with the U.S., including Chinese rare earths, Mideast oil, and others. Our supply chains suffer from data fragmentation that prevents decision makers from making holistic decisions based on the most relevant inputs. Lastly, we are increasingly lagging when it comes to investing in crucial supply chain technology. I hope the Biden Administration is consulting other supply chain industry sources so they can incorporate much needed improvements in the plan to strengthen American competitiveness.”

Meanwhile, China, noted Gordon, is increasingly outstripping the U.S. when it comes to investment in robotics, AI, and other technologies crucial to supply chain competitiveness.