"The pandemic created a heightened awareness of supply chain risk," said Tony Uphoff, president and CEO of Thomasnet.com, a digital media and marketing services company that caters to industrial buyers and suppliers. "Before COVID, no one had any idea where PPE, surgical gowns, scrubs and masks were manufactured. Then, all of a sudden, they learned they were made within 300 miles of Wuhan, China and that their supply chain could get disrupted.