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Nearshoring. Automation. Supplier diversification. Sustainability. Companies are adapting their operations to changing market pressures and geopolitics.

Also Published in: MIT News

Jane Singer interviews Dr. Yossi Sheffi, an award-winning global supply chain expert and Director of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics. According to Dr. Sheffi, the pandemic was proof of how resilient supply chains actually are. He further challenges our conventional wisdom by arguing that despite the power of AI, there are many things that we still need people to do.

Professor Yossi Sheffi, MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics Director, thinks the relentless diffusion of new technologies – including automation and artificial intelligence (AI) – in retailing need not render human workers redundant. Automation and AI will soon take over Walmart's stores and warehouses, performing servicing and fulfillment duties, but that may not be bad news for its workers.

When it came to this book – The Magic Conveyor Belt, by MIT Professor Yossi Sheffi – I came for the robotics and AI but I stayed for the supply chain story…

Global supply chains are immense feats of technological and organizational sophistication. They are also, as the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic showed, vulnerable to unexpected developments. Will that change as artificial intelligence becomes a bigger part of supply chains? And what will happen to workers in the process? MIT Professor Yossi Sheffi explores these topics in a new book, “The Magic Conveyor Belt: AI, Supply Chains, and the Future of Work,”

Supply chains have long been somewhat mysterious networks — even mysterious to some of the largest companies relying on them. Now, there is an increasing push —driven by both business necessity and government pressure — to open up these essential networks.

In a new book, the founder of MIT’s Center for Transportation and Logistics examines how increasingly automated industries can sustain jobs.

Today artificial intelligence literally moving the world. 

Supply chain and logistic companies recently discovered the value of AI. From loading trucks to predicting the future, machine learning is posed to revolutionize the industry. But how is this happening? How does AI help move real-world objects from point A to point B?

Supply chain challenges predated COVID and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, of course, but both these macro events have turned up the pressure significantly. And while experts note that AI’s value is limited when it comes to dealing with unprecedented events on this scale, they agree that these solutions bring real value.

Professor Yossi Sheffi weighs in, as the US government begins to dispense tens of billions of dollars to get microchip makers to relocate manufacturing to the US, hurdles remain, including an increasingly diversified global supply chain that no one country can dominate.