Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1476200
28 PCB007 MAGAZINE I AUGUST 2022 ing, tax holidays, or help with training. ey are quite good at that and I hope it will lead to providing some very practical help. We're not short on innovation or ambition; we're abso- lutely not. e issue, in the end, will be capital structures, how we can invest, who we can per- suade to invest, and take the investment risks. Let's see where it goes. I think it's come to an extreme case where you require government to support your industry, so if government can help, then let's go for it. But it's not going to be within 90 days, that's for sure. Johnson: Let's focus on Q4 2022. ere is still a demand to be filled under some challenging economic situations over the next 180 days. You've pointed out that first you must figure out your supply chain, and then share your forecast with that supply chain. But once you get your supply chain in order, there needs to be some sort of investment or planning to respond to this. What does that look like in your mind, Alun? Morgan: e real issue is that even with the best forecast and the best planning, you still can't get goods. Look at the situation in China. Coming out of a lockdown, Shanghai has basi- cally stopped all goods being shipped from those ports. ey're going to hit the ports on the West Coast of the U.S. and places like Rot- terdam. We're going to see a meltdown in those places because there will be container ships anchored as far as the eye can see because they can't get offloaded quick enough. We're being very practical about this now. We see the lockdowns easing now in China to some degree. But thinking about that, sud- denly all those ships can dock, get loaded up, and then start coming here. is is within three to six months, by the way. When they all hit, that will cause absolute mayhem. ere is no way those ships can all be offloaded in a week or two. It will take months to get those ships unloaded and sent back again. You need to make sure you have more than one supply opportunity for critical things. is is good advice, but generally we haven't been doing this. Of course, it's going to cost more money to have a second source. Now, that sec- ond source possibly might be local. at's also a potential. I mean, why not? Why couldn't you have a local source for some materials? It will cost you more money, probably a lot more. You will need to qualify a second source, which is not easy and takes time. But it's much better to do that than to end up in the position we are now, with many producers not having any raw materials to process, which is the worst possi- ble situation you could be in. If you don't have any raw materials, nothing else matters. Even if someone said, "I'll give it to you for 10 times the price," you'd probably take it; but when you've got nothing, it doesn't matter. One clear consequence of all of this: It will cost more for everybody—the consumers as well. We've already seen that in Europe. We've certainly seen the cost of food and energy rising massively. Some people here are saying, "Oh, we can blame this on Brexit." It's just nonsense. I mean, this is a global situ- ation. Alun Morgan