supply chain management

Research Scientist Eva Ponce, director of online education for the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics, speaks with Wall Street Journal reporter Paul Page about how global supply chain disruptions during the Covid-19 pandemic inspired a new generation of students to pursue careers in supply chain management. “Having been exposed to these big disruptions, the new generation has an appetite for risk management,” Ponce says. “This has become a key topic and that is one of the consequences of the pandemic—this focus on ways to reduce risk and vulnerability.” 

Matt Elenjickal writes for Fast Company about pressuring companies to drive sustainable practices, noting the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics’ 2023 State of Supply Chain Sustainability report, which found that “investors continue to be the fastest-growing source of pressure on company leadership when demanding progress against sustainability goals.” 

Prof. Yossi Sheffi, director of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, discusses the potential impacts of the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore on shipping, logistics and the economy. “Many other ports are not equipped to handle the type of commodities that go to Baltimore,” Sheffi explains.

Prof. Yossi Sheffi, director of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, speaks with WCVB-TV about how the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore and the closing of the Port of Baltimore could impact car shipments on the East Coast. Sheffi explains that not all ports can handle cars like Baltimore, and they require “hundreds of trucks and railcars that are equipped to transport vehicles and bring them to the dealers.”

Research Scientist David Correll speaks with Wall Street Journal reporter Cheryl Winokur Munk about the challenges companies are facing as they try to improve supply-chain sustainability. “Doing better at sustainability involves being closer and sharing information with some of your supply base,” says Correll. “There’s value to unlock through supplier development and collaboration in terms of innovation and resilience.”

A report by researchers from MIT’s Center for Transportation & Logistics and the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals found that nearly half of supply chain professionals have remained committed to the same level of supply chain sustainability as before the Covid-19 pandemic, reports Laura Cooper for The Wall Street Journal. “The report, which surveyed some of 2,400 supply-chain industry professionals, also showed that 36% sought to increase their efforts to be more sustainable,” writes Cooper.

Bloomberg Businessweek reporters Brendan Murray and Enda Curran spotlight the MIT Beer Game, a role-playing exercise that is an annual rite-of-passage for first-year Sloan MBA students that “models the supply-and-demand dynamics among a brewery, distributor, wholesaler, and retailer.” “The pandemic revealed flaws that were latent all along our globalized supply chains,” says Prof. John Sterman. “It’s urgent that we figure out how to improve them so we are prepared for the next shocks, whether another pandemic, civil unrest, climate change—or all of the above.”

Paul Page at The Wall Street Journal reports on a new study co-authored by researchers at MIT, which shows that despite the pandemic, companies were largely able to maintain their supply-chain sustainability goals and increase their focus on social welfare. “It was surprising to see the focus on social issues,” said research scientist David Correll. “The notion of social issues as part of sustainability goals is something we didn’t expect to see generally accepted, but in fact there was an increase in interest in the respondents.”

As part of the Vax India Now event on CNN, Profs. Bruce Walker, Peko Hosoi and Parag Pathak, along with senior research scientist Chris Caplice and MIT Medical Director Cecilia Stuopis, participate in a discussion led by Vijay Joshi, Editor-in-Chief of The Press Trust of India, about what India can learn from America’s experience with vaccine distribution. “It is absolutely [in the U.S.’s] interest to make sure that everybody in India gets vaccinated, that everybody in South America get vaccinated,” says Hosoi. “We really are all in this together.”

Reporting for Marketplace, Kai Ryssdal spotlights how the “beer game,” an exercise developed by a group of MIT researchers in the 1960s to simulate supply chain dynamics, is still commonly “used to teach supply chain principles and demonstrate the bullwhip effect.”

Josué Velázquez Martínez, director of the MIT Sustainable Logistic Initiative, speaks with Tim Heffernan of The New York Times Wirecutter about how offering online shoppers the option to select slower shipping times in an effort to reduce carbon emissions could help make e-commerce a more environmentally-friendly option. 

Prof. Yossi Sheffi speaks with CNN’s Zachary Wolf about how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected supply chains, impacting the supply of ketchup packets and causing delays in computer chips. “During the pandemic many industries reduced their orders and suppliers reduced their orders and capacity even further (because they anticipated that future orders will also be reduced),” says Sheffi. “When the economy came back, there was no capacity to snap right back.”

Research scientist Matthias Winkenbach discusses the difficulties posed by massively scaling up capacity to deal with a surge in online shopping caused by the holidays and the Covid-19 pandemic. “I think especially this time of the year and under these circumstances, maybe also the consumers need to reconsider whether everything they order on Amazon or elsewhere needs to be delivered as fast as possible,” says Winkenbach, “or whether there’s certain things to prioritize and other things to deprioritize.”

Sloan Prof. Zeynep Ton speaks with Andrew Hill of the Financial Times about The Good Jobs Institute, which she co-founded to help companies create better jobs. Ton suggests that retailers “simplify the way stores operate, standardize processes, train staff to fill multiple roles…and schedule more employees than are needed so they can perform better and engage with customers.” 

In an article for The Wall Street Journal, Prof. Yossi Sheffi writes that by banishing plastic straws, companies are improving their public image without taking consequential action to protect the environment. “Eliminating these small tubes enables companies to deliver a ‘feel-good’ message to customers and generate copious amounts of positive publicity, without committing a lot of resources to the environmental effort,” Sheffi explains.