From Timberhp.com

A Look at the Construction Supply Chain: Issues & Solutions

In recent years, the construction industry has faced a labyrinth of challenges, from towering demand to sticky supply chain issues, which have stretched the timelines for residential builds and reshaped the landscape of home construction. These hurdles have compelled professionals and homeowners alike to navigate a new reality, where delays are expected, and flexibility has become a cornerstone of project planning. Let’s examine the intricate tapestry of the construction supply chain, unravel the issues currently binding it, and stitch together solutions that hold promise for a more resilient future.

The pandemic continues to reverberate through the construction supply chain, altering how we source and use building materials. We’ll examine the reasons for supply chain issues, which products have been impacted, and the ripples they cause throughout a project. On the brighter side, we’ll redefine what sustainability means in the construction context—highlighting its role not just in environmental stewardship but as a keystone in building a supply chain that can withstand the tests of time and policy.

2024 Building Supply Chain Issues

More than four years later, the construction industry continues to grapple with supply chain shortages that began cropping up during the 2020 pandemic. With any system as complex as the building materials supply chain, these challenges are interconnected, often intensifying one another. Here are just a few of the major factors in construction supply chain disruptions that both professionals and homeowners are impacted by:

In 2020, the global market for raw materials, which once accounted for more than 50% of building needs, declined sharply as countries closed their borders and sent workers home. This in turn put more demand on local suppliers and quickly resulted in supply chain shortages.

All this and more have come together to cause 2 main supply chain issues: higher prices and longer acquisition and project completion times. Construction input costs are up nearly 39% compared to 2020. Before Covid-19, building materials like steel and timber were typically delivered to project sites within two to four weeks of ordering. Now, those materials can take 12 to 16 weeks to arrive. From 2020 to 2022 the average time to completion of a single family home went from 6.8 months to 8.3.