Timing is the Thing for Modeling the Risk

Forecasting once again is essential for knowing how to react.

Supply chain outlook: The timing of the slowdown
MIT Professor David Simchi-Levi forecast the mid-March manufacturing pause. Now he looks ahead.

Peter Dizikes | MIT News Office
March 25, 2020

With the Covid-19 virus disrupting the global economy, what is the effect on the international supply chain? In a pair of articles, MIT News examines core supply-chain issues, in terms of affected industries and the timing of unfolding interruptions.

The rapid spread of the Covid-19 virus is already having a huge impact on the global economy, which is rippling around the world via the long supply chains of major industries.

MIT supply chain expert David Simchi-Levi has been watching those ripples closely in 2020, as they have moved from China outward to the U.S. and Europe. His tracking of supply chain problems provides insight into what is happening in the global economy — and what could happen in a variety of scenarios.

“This is a significant challenge,” says Simchi-Levi, who is a professor of engineering systems in the School of Engineering and in the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society within the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing. The global public health crisis, he adds, “is not only affecting the supply chain. There is a significant impact on demand, and as a result, a significant impact on the financial performance on all these businesses.”   ... "