Second Thoughts on Second Sourcing

Not keeping all of your eggs in one supply basket is an appealing strategy to increase supply chain resilience. But it’s not always effective.

Aircraft engine maker Pratt & Whitney has doubled up suppliers in an effort to avoid interruptions to the production of its new turbofan engine. But according to a recent Wall Street Journal article, nearly half of Pratt’s 1,600 suppliers are still failing to deliver parts on time.

Multi-sourcing, of course, isn’t the only way that companies can work to ensure a reliable flow of supplies. The main alternative to multi-sourcing is investing in key supplier relationships. There are a number of ways that companies can do this. Some buyers embed representatives in partners’ organizations, and carry out detailed analyses of vendors’ financial positions. Embedded reps can also influence suppliers’ use of sub-tier suppliers, and even advise on the appointment of senior executives.

But developing these kinds of deep relationships is expensive and time-consuming, and as a result they are typically confined to strategic and, sometimes, critical supplies. Dual- or multi-sourcing is often a more attractive option, especially for non-strategic items.

Five Questions to Assess the Risks of Multi-Sourcing

But before rushing to find alternative suppliers, companies should delve into the strategy’s pros and cons. There are a number of drawbacks to the mitigation strategy of dual- or multi-sourcing that companies need to be aware of. The strategy can be costly, and it can actually increase certain types of risk. Companies should explore these five questions before moving forward.

1. Are all the sources in the same geographic area? Companies need to beware of source clusters, because choosing second or third suppliers in the same geographic area might not spread the risk. In 2011, for instance, Thailand experienced severe flooding due to unusually high rainfall levels. At the time, Thailand provided 45% of worldwide hard-drive production. Four of the top five suppliers — Western Digital, Seagate Technologies, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, and Toshiba — had facilities or key suppliers in Thailand, and all four suffered serious disruptions when the flooding occurred. These disruptions subsequently caused shortages of disk supplies. Second sourcing did not help much, because many of the alternative suppliers were located in the same disaster zone. Similarly, much of the world’s chip capacity is concentrated in the north of Taiwan — an area prone to earthquakes.