Utilizing Technology in Supply Chain Operations to Combat the COVID-19 Pandemic

By Adi Permana

Editor Vera Citra Utami

BANDUNG, itb.ac.id—ITB Career Center and Unilever Indonesia hosted a webinar with Rizki Raksanugraha, Unilever Indonesia's Supply Chain Director, on the topic "The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Supply Chain Operations at Unilever Indonesia and Strategies to Deal with It", Friday (18/6/2021).

The webinar was moderated by Naufal Riyandi from the Postgraduate Program in Mechanical Engineering. In addition to the presentation, the webinar participants, who numbered over 200, had the opportunity to participate in ITB Alumni Sharing by Yohanes Christanto, an ITB Chemical Engineering Alumni, and Unilever Indonesia Job Opportunity Sharing.

The pandemic of COVID-19 has had a significant impact on supply chain operations. When the virus first emerged in China, manufacturers there closed, forcing import companies to look for other sources of raw and finished materials for their operations. Europe is a viable alternative, but it is under lockdown. “It continued on and on, and it was quite disturbing. The supply chain starts from upstream to downstream. If it's even slightly disrupted, it'll be disturbed all the way to the bottom," Rizki explained.

Because the link between cost and revenue to service level is exponential, the incremental cost needed to raise service level to 95-98 percent is extremely large. "Technology is one of the solutions to deal with this pandemic," Rizki remarked.

According to Rizki, in the conventional procedure, 3,000 trucks are sent every day to distribute products from companies, one of which is small stalls. This method is not appropriate for usage during the pandemic since it increases the danger of becoming infected with the virus. Salesmen are no longer needed to record requests and provide new products thanks to apps like Sahabat Warung.
Chris shared his experience with the company recruitment process as part of the ITB Alumni Sharing agenda. Using the role, responsibility, and impact (RRI) framework is one of his CV-writing advice. "If you're the secretary general or the president of the student association, for example, you should highlight those kinds of things," Chris added.

Reporter: Amalia Wahyu Utami (TPB FTI, 2020)
Translator: Sekar Dianwidi Bisowarno (Bioengineering, 2019)