>How can there be a supply chain crisis and a inventory surplus?

These are the same problem. Matching allocation to demand is a hard problem and the wild swings in demand caused by COVID and inflation responses means that you have both supply chain problems and surplus problems.

Things aren't very elastic and money-saving just-in-time practices of eliminating buffers mean that it is harder to respond to the various shocks.

You're essentially upset that the future wasn't predicted correctly when there has been a lot of uncertainty going around for years now.