How COVID-19 Affected the Italian Personal Protective Equipment Supply Chain: An Empirical Analysis

Anna Corinna Cagliano (), Antonio Carlin, Carlo Rafele and Chiara Campanale
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Anna Corinna Cagliano: Department of Management and Production Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Torino, Italy
Antonio Carlin: Department of Management and Production Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Torino, Italy
Carlo Rafele: Department of Management and Production Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Torino, Italy
Chiara Campanale: Department of Management and Production Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Torino, Italy

Logistics, 2025, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-19

Abstract: Background: Personal Protective Equipment supply chains encountered severe shortages during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Many manufacturers are located in China, the first country that issued lockdowns, and Personal Protective Equipment inventories, managed by the Just in Time policy, were unprepared for such a demand surge. The existing literature examines the impacts of COVID-19 on the global Personal Protective Equipment supply chain. However, five years after the onset of COVID-19, there is still a lack of studies focusing on Personal Protective Equipment supply chain behavior in Italy. Italy is a particularly significant case study, as it was the first Western country to be severely impacted by the pandemic. This work develops an empirical analysis to answer the following research questions. How did the main variables in the Italian Personal Protective Equipment supply chain change during the early stages of the pandemic? How can we explain such changes? Methods : A questionnaire survey was carried out among producers, importers, and distributors of Personal Protective Equipment operating in Italy. The responses to the questionnaire were analyzed by applying both descriptive statistics and the Kruskal–Wallis test. Results : The findings indicate that importers and distributors experienced more significant increases in orders than producers after the first lockdown, due to the new manufacturer’s setup period before full-scale operations. Conclusions : The study might encourage examinations of how material management strategies aimed at reducing inventory can impact situations involving unanticipated increases in demand. Moreover, it offers insights into the causes and consequences of the criticalities faced by the Italian Personal Protective Equipment supply chain during the first pandemic phases, contributing to creating knowledge that might be useful to define strategies to enhance supply chain resilience.

Keywords: personal protective equipment; supply chain; COVID-19 pandemic; questionnaire survey; Kruskal–Wallis test; Italy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L8 L80 L81 L86 L87 L9 L90 L91 L92 L93 L98 L99 M1 M10 M11 M16 M19 R4 R40 R41 R49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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