Hurricane Season: Why Supply Chain Preparedness Matters

With the NOAA predicting a busier-than-usual hurricane season, there’s no better time to discuss the importance of supply chain preparedness. As stewards of your precious products, your logistics provider should ask the important questions and take the important action steps before an emergency event. In this article, we’ll examine how Kanban does just that.

Before the storm

Preventing supply chain disruption begins with careful planning as soon as a major weather event is forecasted. At Kanban, we start with a meeting of our executive team, which implements plans for our employees and facilities in accordance with our Hurricane Preparedness Checklist.

This Checklist was initially created as part of our ISO:9001 certification and includes a wide range of items including:

• Preparing to secure all dock doors by placing loaded trailers up to the docks. If there aren’t enough trailers available for all doors, we will place clamps and lift trucks behind the doors in the warehouse to keep doors from blowing in
• Preparing to shut off propane and all unnecessary power
• Preparing to shut down servers and electronic equipment and move them to a safe location, if necessary
• Checking drains on building to make sure they are open

We also have a Business Continuity Plan in place which dictates that, before the storm arrives, we make advance personnel assignments for damage assessments, logistical support, contact with outside resources, and monitoring and documentation requirements.

From there, our primary concerns are keeping employees safe, protecting our facilities – including our leased facilities – protecting our customers’ products, and ensuring business continuity to the extent possible. To this end, we will maintain regular contact with employees and customers throughout the storm period to communicate our plans, including changes in service hours.

Kanban Logistics is also in the unique position of being able to help the community in the event of a natural disaster. We are fortunate to have the North Carolina Department of Emergency Management as one of our warehousing tenants. They use Kanban’s Tarboro, NC warehouse as a staging area for relief help.

In advance of Hurricane Florence, for example, we expanded the group’s space by 10,000 square feet so that they could accommodate additional supplies of water, food, blankets, medical supplies, and cots for distribution by the National Guard once the storm arrived.

During and After the Storm

When a storm approaches, we hunker down and maintain contact with the NC Department of Emergency Management for important updates that we can communicate to employees and customers.

Once the storm passes, we operate in accordance with our Business Continuity Plan to identify any damage to our facilities, secure unsafe conditions, seek additional resources for these efforts and comply with state and local emergency efforts. We then update our employees and customers as we make our way back to business as usual.

Trust in Kanban for supply chain preparedness

Preparation for storms is just one of the examples of supply chain preparedness that Kanban Logistics brings to the table. As an ISO-9001-certified logistics provider, this type of preparedness is at the heart of all our operations. Our processes and procedures have been crafted to ensure that your products, our people, and our facilities are always safe and secure. To learn more about Kanban and how an Eastern North Carolina logistics hub can benefit your business, contact us today.