News - Interviews

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..

Professor Yossi Sheffi of MIT University is a scholar in the field of ESG. I asked him, who wrote a book called Balancing Green on a related topic, 'the proper way to practice ESG.' He emphasized the importance of consumer awareness. Businesses and governments can take meaningful action only when consumers recognize the impact of their consumption on the environment and change their behavior.

Yossi Sheffi, a professor at MIT and an expert with deep knowledge of America's supply chain, talks to Newsy about the ongoing supply shortages, and why building new infrastructure right now could make it much worse.

There have been numerous stories in recent days about problems with the supply chain as the economy starts back up after last year's unprecedented shutdowns. Everything is connected and a hiccup here or there can cause delays and price increases for you and me.

This article is Meri Stevens, Worldwide Vice President of Supply Chain, Consumer Health and Deliver at Johnson & Johnson speaking with MIT CTL Director Prof. Yossi Sheffi on Mar. 17, 2021. Read how a global manufacturer has learned some vital lessons about managing uncertainty and planning for the future.

COVID-19 didn’t break the supply chain, it simply accelerated changes already underway, says MIT’s Yossi Sheffi. His new book details what’s coming next.

In the interview, Sheffi explains how companies and governments around the world have dealt with the supply chain disruption over the past year’s pandemic. He also gives insight on how people can prepare for the next time the world’s supply chain is turned on its head. 

Available as a blog here. 

According to Professor Yossi Sheffi, supply chain is typically the “asphalt of the road” —that is, when it works, there’s no need to talk about it. When it doesn't, everyone notices it. 

In this conversation, you will learn how two companies use these lessons to set themselves up for the post-pandemic future in the B2B and B2C markets.

Yossi discusses his principal goals and motivations for writing this latest book that resulted in record turnaround time. We discuss the before and after COVID-19 aspects of industry supply chains, why certain approaches were successful in terms of business process practices, innovation and resourcefulness of supply chain management teams, as well as leveraged use of technology.