Will Hurricane Helene Negatively Impact Machine Vision?

Hurricane Helene slammed into the Big Bend area of Florida on Sept. 26 and proceeded to bulldoze its way through several states, leaving a trail of catastrophic destruction in its path, including through the central Appalachian Mountains.

One of many areas the monster storm catastrophically damaged was the town of Spruce Pine, N.C. Located near the Blue Ridge Parkway, about 50 miles from Asheville, N.C., Spruce Pine is home to mining and refining facilities owned by The Sibelco Group (Charlotte, N.C., USA) and The Quartz Corp. (Drag, Norway). According to an Oct. 2, 2024 article from CNN¹, these facilities supply some 80-90 percent of the world’s supply of high-quality quartz used in manufacturing semiconductors. Both facilities suspended operations Sept. 26, in anticipation of the storm.

Since that time, experts across numerous industries that rely on semiconductors, including machine vision, have raised questions as to whether this situation will lead to a serious supply chain issue. Nonetheless, as progress is made in the recovery efforts in that area, opinions seem to be cautiously optimistic.

According to an Oct. 3, 2024 article in the South China Morning Post ², several global chip manufacturers, including Samsung Electronics and Infeon Technologies, have released statements indicating they do not expect any disruptions from this event.

Machine Vision Expert David Dechow, owner of Machine Vision Source (Salibury, N.C., USA), note that the devastation of Spruce Pine and other impacted areas of North Carolina will likely disrupt business operations in those areas for some time. This could possibly extrapolate to some temporary disruption of such industries as machine vision.

Machine Vision expert Tom Brennan, president of Artemis Vision (Denver, CO, USA), says that, while the immense tragedy involved in loss of life, destruction, and the subsequent frightening specter of potential severe local economic and life consequences cannot be overstated, the storm may be a more singular event to which end consumers are more likely able to adapt, as opposed to the many and complicated supply chain issues wrought by the pandemic.

For example, Brennan notes that, “there have been a few earthquakes in Japan that disrupted Sony for a bit. To be honest, I didn't notice the impact that much, compared to the COVID supply chain snarl. I think it will be more like those earthquakes, where because it's a single disruption, everyone else can adapt, stretching supplies, using substitute components, shifting production to a different facility, etc. The COVID disruption was just all-encompassing.”

The Quartz Company and Sibelco have issued statements indicating that their facilities only sustained minor damage and they are optimistic about resuming operations, neither have officially stated or otherwise indicated when operations could actually resume, as this is dependent on restoration of local infrastructure.

In a statement on its website, Sibelco says, “our final product stock has not been impacted. We are working closely with our customers to assess their needs and plan the restart of product shipments as soon as we can.”

According to a statement released on Oct. 2 by the Quartz Corp on its website, “It is still too early to assess when The Quartz Corporation will resume operations as this will also depend on the rebuilding of local infrastructure. However, we remain confident of our ability to avoid any supply disruption for our High Purity Quartz customers. We operate a long supply chain and like many organizations, we added more focus on our resilience planning post-Covid. As a result, we have established strong levels of feed stock in Norway to supply our purification operations. Coupled with safety stocks of finished products and those that exist at different levels throughout the supply chain, we do not anticipate any critical situation for our downstream industries in the short or medium term.”

References

1. Clare Duffy & Diane Gallagher, "Devastation From Hurricane Helene Could Bring Semiconductor Chipmaking to a Halt," CNN, Oct. 2, 2024, https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/02/tech/semiconductor-supply-chain-north-carolina-helene

2. "TSM, Samsung, Other Chipmakers Monitor Quartz Supply After Hurricane Shuts Mines," The South China Morning Post, Oct. 3, 2024, https://sc.mp/oo73e?utm_source=copy-link&utm_campaign=3280937&utm_medium=share_widget