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PENNSYLVANIA TURFGRASS: Julie Holt, Managing Editor, Leading Edge Communications

Sports field managers have always been known to have a great deal of resilience in the face of unexpected challenges. Just take a quick glance at the weather patterns of the past five years and you’ll find extremes in all directions – record heat, record cold, drought, record snowfall, floods and even tropical storms. And don’t forget weeds, pests, and disease on natural grass fields. But if you also visit the sports news archives, you’ll find that sports carried on, mostly uninterrupted. From Little League to MLB and NFL, athletes didn’t miss opportunities to compete.

As ever, sports field managers show up and figure it out. Through hard work, cooperation and ingenuity, each of those challenges have been overcome and the resilience of those professionals has been proven over and over.

Now, entering another winter season, and looking ahead to the busy spring sports season, SFMs are working to solve yet another wrench in the plans: supply chain disruption. What started as a result of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has now firmly set in as status quo, at least for the foreseeable future. These delays have been affecting the sports field industry (and many others) for nearly two years, and the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t visible just yet. However, almost as soon as this challenge arose, professionals in all segments of sports field and turfgrass management began looking for answers and work-arounds to keep the industry moving forward.

A Chain is Only as Strong as its Weakest Link

While COVID was the domino that set the reaction in motion, a labor shortage was a well-established challenge even before raw material shortages resulted in production delays, which then created an environment ripe for higher cost and limited availability of products ranging from bottled water to tractor parts. In effect, each link in the supply chain has been weakened. When pandemic lockdowns prevented workers from all parts of the supply chain (Figure 1) from maintaining production, the process nearly ground to a halt.

The reopening of those lines was sluggish, and certainly not linear. In the nearly three years since the beginning of the pandemic, overseas lockdowns have ebbed and flowed, creating an unpredictable pipeline bottleneck. The ultimate result has been soaring prices and low or nonexistent stock of products and tools.

Regulation and policy locally and globally certainly play a role in the supply chain, and adaptation to the current climate has been sluggish. The latest challenge that has resulted from these factors is a looming diesel shortage, which certainly will cause price increases that will be passed along to the consumer. (Figures 2, 3)

A Proactive Solution

The supply chain problem is well-documented, but what about the solution? Every distributor, supplier and salesperson echoes the same line: plan ahead and be proactive. What does this entail, exactly?

Ian Lacy, Lead Project Advisor at Tom Irwin emphasizes that SFMs must place great emphasis on a forward forecast. Understanding that equipment that formerly would have taken three months to arrive may now be closer to a year means you must take careful inventory of your existing product and equipment and forecast two to three years out, rather than one year. This approach requires diligent planning, but if this is to be the “new normal,” this type of planning must be our standard. “To repeat the old cliché, we have to ‘prepare for the worst, but hope for the best’,” Lacy shares.

Another shift in procedure that mitigates for shipping issues is looking for product closer to home. Understanding the many variables at play (see sidebar box), eliminating the need to have product shipped overseas can speed the arrival of some products.

Adam Ferucci, Sales Representative at Read Custom Soils reiterates the need to plan ahead, but also to continuously monitor prices and delivery times. Asked how his customers have had to adapt, he says they must “be more proactive and give proper lead time to deliver,” and “reach out for quotes more frequently to be able to budget for price increases.”

While suppliers can’t magically make stock appear, they can keep their customers informed and encourage them to be forward thinking. Ian Lacy shared an example of just how frustrating this situation can be. “We helped a client rebuild a baseball field. The weather slowed us down, but we had time. But then the supply chain slowed us down. We ordered the part, a simple water meter, and what should have been delivered in three weeks, was up to 16 weeks. The contractor had already seeded the outfield, but we had no water. This one small part that only took three hours to actually install, set us back months.” Nearly every SFM can tell a similar story.

But as this industry does, we’ve come together to share solutions that help to ease the burden of this supply chain bottleneck. Professionals in all areas of sports field management have put their heads together to innovate and educate their peers, and even competitors, on solutions to this challenge.

Mark Casey, Sales Territory Manager in Massachusetts for Finch Turf shares his transparent communication process with his customers. “To be helpful and to best serve customer interests, the conversations have substantially changed.  We are recommending they take stock of their inventory today, draw a plan to secure their fleet for the current and coming season and have a plan B for all scenarios if a machine goes down. Managers need continuity of operations and now aren’t always able to count on a dealer loaner or demo machine support, which in this climate have been fewer and limited. The purchase of used & refurbished machines have become a popular, viable, and more available option. We are helping more customers assess fleet strength and provide long term plans for replacement.”

The current supply chain crisis may have taken the industry off guard, but one thing is certain – sports field managers are well-equipped to adjust, re-evaluate and find winning solutions.