Resilinc, Milpitas, Calif., released its “2016 EventWatch Annual Report,” which analyzes and summarizes nearly 1,500 unique supply chain notifications and alerts generated by its EventWatch 24X7 global event monitoring, alert and analysis service.

EventWatch is said to be the only service of its kind that personalizes client’s potential impact at the supplier site and part levels to quantify the potential revenue at risk. Suppliers can also share impact confirmation in real time for each event on the platform.

The annual report analyzed incidents by risk type, industry, geography, severity and seasonality and compared 2016 data in these categories with 2014 and 2015.

“The earthquakes that impacted southern Taiwan and Japan in the first half of the year and the bankruptcy declaration of Hanjin Shipping caused considerable disruptions to global supply chains. Also, 2016 saw a higher frequency of low-impact disruption events over the previous year. Business-related events such as mergers and acquisitions, business sale and reorganization/management change were most common events notified,” says Shahzaib Khan, director.

The report also reveals The EventWatch Top 5 supply chain events of 2016, driven by estimated aggregate revenue impact felt by manufacturers across the supply chain. This was calculated leveraging Resilinc’s database of over 70,000 supplier sites and approximately 1.8 million parts.

The Top 5 events of 2016 in terms of impact to businesses, were:

(1) 6.4 magnitude earthquake in Taiwan (February)

(2) Series of earthquakes in Japan (April)

(3) Typhoon Haima, which hit Taiwan, China and the Philippines

(4) Typhoon Napartak and

(5) Typhoon Megi, which affected parts of Taiwan and China.

Key report highlights include:

  • Mergers and acquisitions represented the majority of EventWatch bulletins in 2016, with 20% of bulletins notified.
  • Despite the increase in the total number of factory fire events notified in 2016, factory fires/explosions dropped slightly from 17% in 2015 to 13% in 2016, falling to the 2nd position for the first time.
  • For the first time, life sciences overtook the automotive industry as the most frequently impacted industry, fueled by an increase in merger and acquisition and FDA/EMA action bulletins.
  • In 2016, the majority of supply chain events reported by EventWatch occurred in North America, overtaking Asia, which had the majority of events in 2015.

The report highlights global supply chain risk trends through a variety of lenses to help stakeholders understand the following:

  • Which disruption event types are most common or becoming more common?
  • How does one industry compare to others in terms of the number of events experienced?
  • Which regions are impacted the most?
  • And, what months see the most disruptive incidents?