While there are many side-effects of the Covid infection, we also see side-effects from the pandemic itself. The repeated lockdowns around the globe we’ve seen in an attempt to control the disease have reduce the roar of industrial activity to the faintest murmur.
New technologies have been the major victim of this downturn, component manufacturers closed down for a period. Meanwhile consumers have been insatiable with their demand for IT products to enable working and schooling from home and to stave off boredom. The supply chain is starved and components like touch screens are in such short supply that vehicle manufacturers are considering retro-fitting them.
Manufacturers who use these advanced products, like touch-screens, have two choices, stop supplying customers or like Metrel, the supplier of advanced electrical testing solutions, to abandon their usual chain and to purchase in the world market. While one can continue to satisfy customer requirements, the downside is a significant increase in cost.
Meanwhile companies working with older more staid technologies using fashioned custom components will delay seeing this inflationary effect as they eat in to their stocks but like death and taxes the problem will come to us all.
