From Toilet Paper To Vaccines, All Eyes Were On Supply Chain In 2020. What About 2021?

From Toilet Paper To Vaccines, All Eyes Were On Supply Chain In 2020. What About 2021?

Yossi Sheffi

According to Yossi Sheffi, professor at MIT and director of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, supply chain is typically the “asphalt of the road” —that is, when it works, there's no need to talk about it. 

In 2020, of course, everyone wanted to talk about supply chain, thanks to both real and perceived challenges in getting products from factories to consumers during the Covid-19 pandemic. From toilet paper shortages and shipping delays to problems getting PPE to healthcare workers and delays in rolling out Covid-19 vaccines, few topics were front and center in the media like the trials and tribulations of the global supply chain. 

“In March, I realized we were experiencing the biggest emphasis on supply chain issues in my lifetime,” says Sheffi. At the time, he was working on a fifth book about the history of innovation in supply chain management, but he quickly pivoted.



That shift resulted in his latest book, The New (Ab)Normal, which examines how companies had to rapidly change their operations in the face of disrupted supply, hoarding problems, government mandates and medical supply needs. He details how businesses grappled with the chaos of the pandemic, and