MIT Sloan Management Review Article on What Everyone Gets Wrong About the Never-Ending COVID-19 Supply Chain Crisis

The ongoing global supply chain crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic shows no sign of abating. Widespread product shortages are focusing attention on supply chain issues as never before — and while this publicity has shed some light on the problem, it has also spawned (misguided) calls to end the practice of just-in-time inventory management.

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Multiple factors have led to the current situation, but they spring from two overarching causes: suppliers’ inability to adjust to soaring demand, and government interventions. In order to develop solutions to pandemic-induced product shortages, we need a better understanding of how these issues have played out since early 2020 and resulted in a worldwide logistics logjam.

About the Author

Yossi Sheffi (@yossisheffi) is the Elisha Gray II Professor of Engineering Systems at MIT, director of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, and the author of The New (Ab)normal: Reshaping Business and Supply Chain Strategy Beyond COVID-19 (MIT CTL Media, 2020)