News

The U.S. government’s broad social spending, the country’s aging infrastructure, and global supply chain disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have jointly contributed to the ongoing supply chain crisis in the United States, said leading U.S. expert Dr. Yossi Sheffi. 

This week on Hubwonk, Joe Selvaggi talks with global supply chain expert, MIT Professor Yossi Sheffi about the unprecedented global supply and demand shocks created by the Covid-19 pandemic and how effective supply chain managers in an integrated world economy adapted to provide consumers with food, goods, and vaccines in record time.
 

America’s supply chain crisis. Developing and distributing the Covid vaccine was more difficult than the moonshot! 

Professor Yossi Sheffi joins The.Peel podcast for a global experts perspective of history and the current Supply Chain crisis in the news. 

Experts say all holiday shoppers would be wise to get a head start on their holiday shopping this year. Escalating supply chain disruptions will delay the arrival of presents—if you can get them at all.

In his new book “A SHOT IN THE ARM: How Science, Engineering, and Supply Chains Converged to Vaccinate the World” (MIT CTL Media, 2021) published today, MIT Professor Yossi Sheffi recounts the vaccine’s extraordinary journey from scientific breakthroughs to coronavirus antidote and mass vaccination. And he explores how the mission could transform the fight against deadly diseases and other global-scale challenges.

According to Yosi Sheffi, the director of MIT's Center for Transportation and Logistics, "The underlying cause of all of this is actually a huge increase in demand. … People did not spend during the pandemic. And then, all the government help came; trillions of dollars went to households. So, they order stuff. They order more and more stuff. And the whole global markets were not ready for this." So, wait: There's plenty of goods, and plenty of people who want to buy them – so, where's the problem? Here's a hint: Trucks.

Driven by the chaos of the coronavirus pandemic, companies have created “corporate immune systems” to recognize and manage large-scale disruptions quickly, according to a new book from Yossi Sheffi, a supply chain professor at the Massachusetts Institute of technology (MIT).

Mecalux sat down with professor Yossi Sheffi, Director of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, to talk about how Covid-19 is reshaping businesses and supply chains – and what’s coming next. Covid-19 has taught us several things about supply chains. First of all, we learned that the general media — including major publications in the U.S. and Europe — know very little about supply chains. The media tend to catastrophize everything..

In his book The Power of Resilience: How the Best Managed Companies Manage the Unexpected, MIT’s Yossi Sheffi describes the rising vulnerability on all sides of the supply chain: more distance, more players, more variety, more technology, more complexity. Companies must look to their chief supply chain officers to ensure that the supply chain is resilient to disruption. For many businesses, supply chain disruption is the largest operational risk.

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has illustrated the devastating effects that a global pandemic can have on all facets of our society. We must do better to prepare for and respond to future pandemics and biological incidents. Per Executive Order (EO) 14001, “On a Sustainable Public Health Supply Chain,” the enclosed public health supply chain resilience strategy aims to design, build, and sustain a long-term capability in the United States to manufacture supplies for future pandemics and biological threats.