What happened this week: The struggle continues. The supply chain disruptions in combination with frozen private consumption due to the corona lockdowns continue to send their after-shocks throughout the world and almost every industry. We are still learning how much damage this has done to the system of mainstream mass production. There is a long learning curve ahead for all of us regarding what it means when the perfect system of upstream production and managed and planned consumption freeze. Individual decisions have become almost impossible, which is reflected today in the general attitude; everybody is waiting for customers to make decisions and take action. Proactive decisions, creative communications, open and transparent exchanges of facts across the different stages of the supply chain do not exist. There are a lot of lukewarm forecasts that one has to consider as guess-work rather than the result of facts; they do not really offer any insight. This has led to speculation that the situation might be worse today than it was during the peak of the corona crisis. Despite all the money being poured into the markets and all the assistance governments are trying to offer, the restart continues to stutter. With all the unsold inventory, the top priority today is to manage that problem and not really to focus on the future. 

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