Sadly it takes a problem to bring out the hindsight. Sure lack of investment may well have been a factor, but a larger factor would be the shift towards just-in-time manufacturing. This has in many walks of the supply chain over the pandemic, highlighted this and many other downsides of such an approach.
We must also not forget the ever driven push to faster, smaller bleeding-edge process nodes and the demand. In effect, the whole pandemic proved a perfect storm for whole markets.
As always, lessons will be learned, though, in the end, higher consumer prices will and is inevitable as companies apply mitigations to address the issues that played out. Sure not all issues are as easy a fix as adding more capacity, stock warehousing and those additional costs, costs that we as consumers have seen play out as reduced prices as some of the savings with just-in-time have been passed on, though mostly to share-holders I do somewhat feel. This raises another question - will company share-holders who have enjoyed and profited from the shift in increased dividends over the decades thru this business model approach, accept a small cut, or will we (as I suspect) see that carry on and the increased costs/impact passed onto the consumers.
We must also not forget the ever driven push to faster, smaller bleeding-edge process nodes and the demand. In effect, the whole pandemic proved a perfect storm for whole markets.
As always, lessons will be learned, though, in the end, higher consumer prices will and is inevitable as companies apply mitigations to address the issues that played out. Sure not all issues are as easy a fix as adding more capacity, stock warehousing and those additional costs, costs that we as consumers have seen play out as reduced prices as some of the savings with just-in-time have been passed on, though mostly to share-holders I do somewhat feel. This raises another question - will company share-holders who have enjoyed and profited from the shift in increased dividends over the decades thru this business model approach, accept a small cut, or will we (as I suspect) see that carry on and the increased costs/impact passed onto the consumers.