North America topped the list for most disruptions to the supply chain in 2022, followed by Europe and Asia, according to Resilinc, a company that builds technologies and software that map and monitor the supply chain.
Overall, supply chain disruptions were up 32 percent over the previous year, according to Resilinc’s EventWatch AI monitoring database. Ninety-one percent were human-caused.
For the second consecutive year, the sectors experiencing the most disruptions were the life sciences, health-care, general manufacturing, high-tech and automotive industries.
The following reasons were the most common factors behind disruptions, in order: factory fires, which accounted for 3,609 alerts — an 85 percent year-over-year increase; mergers and acquisitions; business sales; leadership transitions; factory disruptions; labor disruptions — the factor behind a port truck driver strike in the U.S.; legal actions; cyber attacks; recalls; and port disruptions.
Though they didn’t make the top 10, issues involving geopolitical disruptions, particularly Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, also created evident impact — with alerts up 378 percent. Meanwhile, alerts involving airport disruptions jumped 189 percent.
EventWatch AI collects information and monitors news on 400 different types of disruptions across 104 million sources found in 100 languages and countries, including traditional news sources, social media platforms, wire services, videos, and government reports.
