Your Supply Chain is Longer than You Think

Too many people only look at the last step of their supply chain, and even then, they often overlook other dependencies, such as how a product might be delivered. These days, there tend to be so many options that one might assume products or materials will always be available. However, that’s no longer the case with tariff implementation and threats.

With the exception of food and fuel, most items need a great deal of support to create and deliver. Even for food and fuel, many discount or overlook much of that support. For example, farms providing food that must be delivered to a store where it’s typically purchased requires people, machines, seeds, and much more, including good weather, possibly fertilizer and more. Farming is a lot harder that you might think, but it’s as critical as our electronics that we also depend on daily.

The challenge in discussing the impact of tariffs and other changes in the U.S. is the dependencies involved for everything from intellectual property (IP) to the price and availability of copper. Unfortunately, designing for tariffs isn’t an easy task when contending with the latest changes in government.

Electronic Dependencies

Of course, this being Electronic Design, we focus on electronics and related technology, so that’s what we editors tend to talk about. Many of the chips we report on highlight the long supply chain needed to deliver these bits of silicon. The machinery to create these chips alone has millions of dependencies, such as the people needed to build, service and operate, and that doesn’t even include those who design the chips.

A single system-on-chip is built from multiple layers that require various doping and deposition materials and processes. It’s not like stamping out a coin, although many talk about it that way.

Multiple robots and clean rooms require active contamination control and more, and we haven’t even moved to the chip assembly. Duplicating a chip factory means replicating the people, devices, and materials. There’s also the support structure that includes water, sanitation, and electrical power, to mention a few necessary items.

If a particular item in the chain becomes very costly or unavailable, then it could shut down the whole system. We’ve already seen that the availability of chips for cars can force shutdowns, as was the case during COVID.

The interactions between supply chains for different products can be seen with products like John Deere’s self-driving tractors (Fig. 1). The tractors incorporate GPS, multiple cameras, artificial-intelligence (AI) acceleration for on-board AI model support, and much more. Though tires and other materials might be simpler to build, they’re no less important to the successful operation of the tractor. And don’t forget the IP needed for all of the technology that’s employed, including the software.

In theory, various components can have second sources or be replaced by a similar item, but that task is neither easy nor guaranteed to work. Even something as simple as a resistor or cable may be difficult or impossible when it comes to finding a substitute. Safety-critical systems like cars and aircraft need recertification if such a change is made. Certification may not seem like a dependency, but it is one.

Long-Term Choices and Building Infrastructure

The chain of dependencies also affects long-term choices, as the required infrastructure to support most projects from farming to self-driving cars is substantial. It’s also something that’s easy to destroy but hard to rebuild, especially if the competition doesn’t have the same restrictions.

Electric vehicles (EVs), batteries, wind energy, and fusion research are some of the arenas making news these days. These employ cutting-edge technology, and the worldwide demand is growing. Countries not investing in these will fall behind to the point where it will be next-to-impossible to catch up.

Shutting down a factory or research project is simple and can be almost immediate. Restarting becomes more difficult as time goes on, and restarting from scratch eventually requires building from the ground up.

What Happens When Availability Changes

Rebuilding can be a very slow and time-consuming process. I like to highlight two book series that I’ve read related to rebuilding: 1632 by Eric Flint (free ebook download) and Under a Graveyard Sky by John Ringo (Fig. 2) They’re the first in their series. I don’t think we are at the point that either of these series portrays, but they do highlight the different dependencies needed to support a high technology style of living.

1632 is a sci-fi series with a premise that a West Virgina town called Grantville is surrounded by a time bubble in the year 2000 and moved back in time to 1632, landing in the middle of 17th century Germany just in time for the 30-year war. The town had personal computers and there’s a power station, but going from that stage to building their own aircraft and television stations is going to be long haul.

Stories about telegraph systems, vacuum tubes, and simple crystal radios abound. However, it always highlights the need to build the tools for some advanced technology and how the lack of education, information, etc., limits what can be done.

Under a Graveyard Sky is your favorite zombie apocalypse created by a dual expression, bioterrorism virus that creates bitey, naked zombies wiping out the majority of people all over the world. The series focuses on the recovery efforts, including vaccine creation. It tends to be more accurate in the why’s and how’s of this type of zombie, such as why they need to be naked in the long run.

Clothing aside, the difference here is that the systems like a chip or car factory may still be around, but they need to recovered, cleaned up, and manned. That can be hard, though, when a lot of critical people have died or turned into raving zombies.

Besides some fun reading, at least for me, the two series highlight both the multiple dependencies of lots of technology we take for granted, like clean water and GPS (see zombies), as well as the difficulty of rebuilding when some or all of the pieces are missing.

Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money

Sorry, I just like the title of Warren Zevon’s song.

Still, given the state we’re in now, where lawyers are deeply involved on both sides of the issues, it’s the money one needs to follow. And that involves both for who’s losing as well as who’s gaining. Actually, the guns are involved, too. However, that tends to be in places outside of the U.S. where we are based, but no less affected by a very long supply chain. In those cases, the supply chain is even more critical to the survival of people, including children.

Just for fun, I've included a quick poll below to ascertain where you stand with your supply chain.