research topic for supply chain

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Reading Lists
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

Supply chain management

• Business management
• Operations and supply chain management
• Operations strategy

One Way to Build More Resilient Medical Supply Chains in the U.S.

• Douglas Hannah
• February 16, 2021

Crime and Management: An Interview with New York City Police Commissioner Lee P. Brown

• Alan M. Webber
• From the May–June 1991 Issue

Protect Your Company or Your Cousin? (Commentary for HBR Case Study)

• Joseph L. Badaracco Jr.
• Stacey Peck
• Mita Mallick
• March 01, 2021

The Japan Earthquake Rattles Supply Chains, Too

• Willy C. Shih
• March 23, 2011

How to Survive Climate Change and Still Run a Thriving Business: Checklists for Smart Leaders

• Eric Lowitt
• From the April 2014 Issue

Innovate at Your Own Risk: Deborah Wince-Smith on Competitiveness

• Gardiner Morse
• From the May 2005 Issue

Mobilizing on Climate

• Andrew Winston
• Andy Robinson
• Gretchen Gavett
• Laura Palmeiro
• Delphine Gibassier
• Laura Amico
• Sheldon Whitehouse
• February 12, 2020

How Kenvue De-Risked Its Supply Chain

• Michael Altman
• Atalay Atasu
• Evren Özkaya
• October 18, 2023

Is Your Supply Chain Ready for the Congestion Crisis?

• George Stalk, Jr.
• Petros Paranikas
• June 22, 2015

Fit Products and Channels to Your Markets

• Robert E. Weigand
• From the January 1977 Issue

Radically Simple IT

• David M. Upton
• Bradley R. Staats
• From the March 2008 Issue

The Supply Chain Economy and the Future of Good Jobs in America

• Mercedes Delgado
• Karen Mills
• March 09, 2018

Solving the Twin Crises of Energy and Water Scarcity

• Debora Frodl
• January 25, 2016

Manage the Suppliers That Could Harm Your Brand

• Jodi L. Short
• Michael W. Toffel
• From the March–April 2021 Issue

Speed Kills: Supply Chain Lessons from the War in Iraq

• Diane K. Morales
• Steve Geary
• November 01, 2003

Break the Paper Jam in B2B Payments

• Steve Berez
• Arpan Sheth
• From the November 2007 Issue

Case Study: How Should We Diversify Our Supply Chain?

• Krishna G. Palepu
• From the November–December 2023 Issue

Global Supply Chains in a Post-Pandemic World

• Willy C Shih
• From the September–October 2020 Issue

The Latest Supply Chain Disruption: Plastics

• Bindiya Vakil
• March 26, 2021

Using Technology to Improve Supply-Chain Resilience

• Jonathan Colehower
• September 25, 2023

How Machine Learning Will Transform Supply Chain Management

• Morris A. Cohen
• Rohan Deshpande
• Vinayak Deshpande
• From the March–April 2024 Issue

Building a Supplier Diversity Program? Learn from the U.S. Government.

• Chris Parker
• Dwaipayan Roy
• February 09, 2024

2023: A Strange, Tumultuous Year in Sustainability

• December 28, 2023

How Global Companies Use AI to Prevent Supply Chain Disruptions

• Remko Van Hoek
• Mary Lacity
• November 21, 2023

The Next Supply-Chain Challenge Isn’t a Shortage — It’s Inventory Glut

• PS Subramaniam
• September 29, 2023

How Tony’s Chocolonely Created a Purpose-Driven (and Profitable) Supply Chain

• Frans Pannekoek
• Thomas Breugem
• Luk N. Van Wassenhove
• September 11, 2023

Forecasting in Flux: Navigating Uncertainty through Strategic Supply Chain Flexibility

• June 15, 2023

Reducing Forecast Risk with Supply Chain Flexibility Webinar

• June 01, 2023

Rethinking Supply Chains for Greater Efficiency, Resiliency, and Sustainability

• April 27, 2023

How Tracking ESG Metrics Can Help Reduce Costs and Build Supply-Chain Resilience

• April 26, 2023

How to Build Supply Chain Resilience Without Sacrificing ESG Goals or Inflating Costs

• March 29, 2023

A Resilient Supply Chain Built for Competitive Advantage

• March 07, 2023

Marico’s Chairman on Innovating Across Every Part of the Business

• Harsh Mariwala
• From the January–February 2023 Issue

Crate & Barrel Holdings CEO Janet Hayes on Navigating Turbulent Times for Retail

• December 15, 2022

How Smaller Companies Can Bring Manufacturing Closer to Home

• Arnd Huchzermeier
• December 07, 2022

How American Eagle Reinvented Its Fulfillment Strategy

• Shekar Natarajan
• Thales S. Teixeira
• November 07, 2022

3 Ways to Build Trust with Your Suppliers

• Kate Vitasek
• Karl Manrodt
• Gerald Ledlow
• November 04, 2022

Levi Strauss & Co.: Driving Adoption of Green Chemistry

• Robert Strand
• Martin Mulvihill
• July 01, 2016

Linear Optimization

• Rafael di Santiago
• May 13, 2019

Grameen Danone Foods Ltd., a Social Business

• V. Kasturi Rangan
• Katherine Lee
• September 13, 2010

adidas Russia/CIS and the Russian Crisis: Retrench or Double Down (B)

• Carlos Cordon
• Benoit Leleux
• Beverley Lennox
• September 14, 2016

Malaria Control in Zambia (Condensed Version)

• Vanessa Redditt
• Kileken ole-MoiYoi
• William Rodriguez
• Julie Rosenberg
• Rebecca Weintraub
• April 13, 2012

New Jersey Temple Construction: Social Inequalities and Modern Slavery

• Pardeep Singh Attri
• Vivek Soundararajan
• Hari Bapuji
• September 18, 2022

Shanghai Volkswagen: Facing a New Era

• Yasheng Huang
• July 08, 1999

Patagonia's Path to Carbon Neutrality by 2025

• Daniel M. Kammen
• Paul Hendricks
• Seren Pendleton-Knoll
• Vincent Stanley
• April 01, 2018

Allbirds: Decarbonizing Fashion

• Eren Kuzucu
• August 29, 2021

i2 Technologies, Inc.

• Ananth Raman
• Jasjit Singh
• December 07, 1998

Northvolt: Making the World's Greenest Battery

• Jurgen Weiss
• Emilie Billaud
• August 09, 2021

Boeing 737 Manufacturing Footprint: The Wichita Decision

• Margaret Pierson
• October 05, 2011

TSC Stores: Supply Chain Management for Profitable Growth

• P. Fraser Johnson
• February 17, 2009

Asahi Breweries Ltd.

• Malcolm S. Salter
• Jiro Kokuryo
• February 23, 1989

Boeing: The Case for Supplier Diversity

• Karen L. Proudford
• Laurin Hodge
• May 24, 2016

NIKE Supply Chain in the New Digital Age

• Joan Jane Marcet
• Pedro Ferrinha
• March 14, 2022

Campbell Soup Co.: A Leader in Continuous Replenishment Innovations

• James L. McKenney
• Theodore H. Clark
• October 14, 1994

METRO Cash & Carry in China, 2008

• Tarun Khanna
• November 03, 2009

Governance and Sustainability at Nike (A)

• Lynn S. Paine
• Nien-he Hsieh
• Lara Adamsons
• June 17, 2013

Zipline: Life-Saving Drone Service Redefining the Supply Chain

• Luk Van Wassenhove
• Loic Sadoulet
• Anne Nai-Tien Huang
• May 24, 2023

Levi Strauss & Co.: Driving Adoption of Green Chemistry, Teaching Note

Next company spokesperson may be you.

• Ken Cottrill
• November 01, 2005

Dakota Industrial Co. Ltd: Sustainable Garment Manufacturing in a Fast-Fashion World, Teaching Note

• Melody Man Chi Chao
• Edith Terry
• July 30, 2020

Are Chocolate Eaters Really SDG Smart?, PowerPoint Slides

• Sarah Dewilde
• May 26, 2021

Popular Topics

Partner center.

At the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics

• Center for Latin-American Logistics Innovation
• Luxembourg Center for Logistics and Supply Chain Management
• Malaysia Institute for Supply Chain Innovation
• MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics
• Ningbo China Institute for Supply Chain Innovation
• Zaragoza Logistics Center
• Master's Degree Programs
• GCLOG Certificate
• Master's Program Admissions
• Researchers
• Alumni Benefits & SCALE Credentials

Supply Chain and Logistics Research and Reports

The MIT Global Supply Chain and Logistics Excellence (SCALE) Network strives to develop and disseminate supply chain expertise around the world. Our  researchers work on projects/problems across the full spectrum of supply chain, including:

• How artificial intelligence and machine learning are impacting supply chain management
• How transportation and freight are changing in a global marketplace
• The promises and pitfalls of Blockchain for supply chain and beyond
• Understanding how companies and organizations manage supply chain risk and build resiliency
• Developments in logistics and strategy for the worlds vulnerable populations
• How digitalization is reshaping supply chains and how these changes impact organizations
• How supply chain consumer models are changing in an increasingly complex retail landscape
• How companies and organizations manage supply chain risk and build resiliency
• Managing sustainability in a competitive global landscape

Learn about our Centers' research and projects on their web sites:

• Browse All Articles
• Newsletter Sign-Up

SupplyChainManagement →

No results found in working knowledge.

• Were any results found in one of the other content buckets on the left?
• Try removing some search filters.
• Use different search filters.

• Harvard Business School →
• Faculty & Research →

Publications

• Global Research Centers
• Case Development
• Initiatives & Projects
• Research Services
• Seminars & Conferences
• Publications →

Show Results For

• All HBS Web  (115,900)
• Faculty Publications  (58,332)

SupplyChain →

No results found in faculty publications.

• Were any results found in one of the other content buckets on the left?
• Try removing some search filters.
• Use different search filters.

• Data, AI, & Machine Learning
• Managing Technology
• Social Responsibility
• Workplace, Teams, & Culture
• AI & Machine Learning
• Diversity & Inclusion
• Big ideas Research Projects
• Artificial Intelligence and Business Strategy
• Responsible AI
• Future of the Workforce
• Future of Leadership
• All Research Projects
• AI in Action
• Most Popular
• The Truth Behind the Nursing Crisis
• Work/23: The Big Shift
• Coaching for the Future-Forward Leader
• Measuring Culture

The spring 2024 issue’s special report looks at how to take advantage of market opportunities in the digital space, and provides advice on building culture and friendships at work; maximizing the benefits of LLMs, corporate venture capital initiatives, and innovation contests; and scaling automation and digital health platform.

• Past Issues
• Upcoming Events
• Video Archive
• Me, Myself, and AI
• Three Big Points

Supply Chains & Logistics

A tale of two hot sauces: spicing up diversification.

The dueling fortunes of two hot sauce companies demonstrate the power of strategic diversification.

Achal Bassamboo and James G. Conley

Global strategy, reality check: deglobalization.

There’s a widespread belief that U.S. companies are increasingly choosing to deglobalize. But is that really happening?

Omri Nahmias

Pair people and ai for better product demand forecasting.

A new framework can help companies fine-tune their product demand forecasting by using human and AI agents in concert.

Devadrita Nair and Maria Jesus Saenz

Content sponsored by amazon business, reinventing procurement: from cost center to innovation driver.

Todd Heimes of Amazon Business shares insights on procurement and digital transformation.

MIT SMR Connections

The looming challenge of chemical disclosures.

To comply with new sustainability rules, consumer brands need much more visibility into products’ chemical compositions.

Lori Bestervelt, Colleen McLoughlin, and Jillian Stacy

A reshoring renaissance is underway.

Geopolitics and supply chain resiliency are just two of the factors spurring some manufacturers to move back to the U.S.

Erin McLaughlin and Dana M. Peterson

Content sponsored by ey, staying compliant in a complex world: what today’s business leaders need to know.

This Strategy Guide offers expert insights and best practices for state-of-the-art compliance.

Analytics & Business Intelligence

Strategic alignment with ai and smart kpis.

When organizations create forward-looking smart KPIs with AI, they see increased strategic alignment.

David Kiron, Michael Schrage, François Candelon, Shervin Khodabandeh, and Michael Chu

Leading change, procurement in the age of automation.

Research points to six practices leaders can use to overcome stakeholder resistance to automated negotiation technology.

Remko Van Hoek and Mary Lacity

Taming the counterfeiting epidemic.

Businesses must take a multilayered approach to effectively combat counterfeit and unauthorized sales of their products.

Robert Handfield, Anand Nair, and Thomas Y. Choi

Are you ready for the next supply disruption.

Supply chain risks have become nearly incalculable. Managing them requires a capabilities-driven mindset.

M. Johnny Rungtusanatham, David A. Johnston, and Elizabeth Heichler

Financial management & risk, risk intelligence and the resilient company.

A more logical approach to risk management can help leaders sustain value generation through disruption and uncertainty.

Ananya Sheth and Joseph V. Sinfield

How e-commerce companies can reduce returns.

Research shows that product returns decrease when online shoppers receive orders in a single, consolidated delivery.

Pedro Amorim, Eduard Calvo, and Laura Wagner

Business models, new threats to the subscription model.

Inflation and supply chain disruption are exposing the risks of relying on a subscription model in some markets.

Oded Koenigsberg

Commodities markets are broken. responsible supply chains can fix them..

Transparency about how minerals are sourced advances environmental justice and climate protection.

Stephen Lezak, Valentina Guido, and Paolo Natali

Talent management, our guide to the winter 2023 issue.

This issue of MIT SMR focuses on creating and managing successful, engaged teams in a pandemic-changed world.

MIT Sloan Management Review

Get ready for the next supply disruption, m. johnny rungtusanatham and david a. johnston, supply chain leaders, prioritize these three talent strategy essentials.

To strengthen resiliency, companies need to build flexibility into the supply chain talent base.

Inge Oosterhuis and Kristine Renker

Big data in agriculture: land o’lakes’ teddy bekele.

Land O’Lakes’ CTO explains how data and artificial intelligence help the organization support agricultural production.

Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh

Unlocking the potential of digital twins in supply chains.

Digital twins can deliver immense benefits across a wide range of supply chains with the right implementation strategy.

Özden Tozanli and Maria Jesús Saénz

The impact of COVID-19 on supply chains: systematic review and future research directions

• Open access
• Published: 07 July 2023
• Volume 23 , article number  48 , ( 2023 )

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

• Hassan Younis 1 ,
• Malek Alsharairi 1 ,
• Hammad Younes 2 &
• Balan Sundarakani   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3510-8746 3  

5725 Accesses

5 Citations

Explore all metrics

The purpose of this research is to investigate how COVID-19 impacted supply chains and to develop future research directions from thereof. Using a systematic literature review methodology, this study analyzes publications on Google Scholar and Scopus that explored the impact of COVID-19 on supply chains. The research thoroughly reviews and analyzes a total of 95 studies that were found relevant and significant. COVID-19 had a significant impact on supply chains and organizations a like and therefore the study has revealed the following findings. Although some scholars claim that the pandemic revealed the fragility of supply chains, brought many logistical activities to standstill, and completely disrupted markets, but other researchers found that it has also created unlimited opportunities for organizations and industries. This review concluded that extant of literature falls into four themes; those who believe that COVID-19 was a complete threat, researchers who believe that it was both a threat and opportunity, those who believe it created enormous opportunities and lastly scholars who proposed a model that can help mitigate the impact of the pandemic on supply chains. This study opens the door wide for other researchers to explore how COVID-19 pandemic impacted supply chains positively and negatively across many industries and contexts. The study also provides an easy reference for business managers who are interested in knowing what would be the consequences of such pandemic on their organizations and how to take the right decisions that can help mitigate the many threats while at the same time maximize any opportunities created.

Similar content being viewed by others

Impact of COVID-19 on Global Supply Chain Management

Towards Supply Chain 5.0: Redesigning Supply Chains as Resilient, Sustainable, and Human-Centric Systems in a Post-pandemic World

Two years of COVID-19 pandemic: Understanding the role of knowledge-based supply chains towards resilience through bibliometric and network analyses

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

1 Introduction

COVID-19 pandemic impacted supply chains, organizations and industries as a whole creating severe risks including; supply risks, demand risks, financial risks (Sharma et al. 2020a , b ), reduction in sales and vanishing of profits (Shafi et al. 2020 ). It has also revealed how fragile supply chains are Mahajan and Tomar ( 2020 ) and to what extent enterprises are inresilient to disruptions (Shafi et al. 2020 ). Markets were adversely affected too, which led to major shortages in critical supplies and daily life products and services (Atkinson et al. 2020 ). The pandemic also brought many activities to standstill which entailed taking vigorous steps by governments to facilitate people’s lives (Timilsina et al. 2020 ). For example, Putri et al. ( 2020 ) argued that lowering interest rates, elimination of tax, direct assistance to business actors and leniency of regulations enabled the Indonesian market to survive the pandemic and to lessen its impact on the economy (Frederico et al. 2021a , 2021b ).

While the pandemic led to negative consequences across various industries and within certain contexts, still it also created opportunities that were seized by many organizations especially those operating in the pharmaceutical industry and online retailing (Amalia et al. 2020 ; Acioli et al. 2021 ; Frederico et al. 2021a ). Another industry that flourished during the pandemic is the express delivery as there was a significant increase in the diversity and extent of service-related transport to commercial and residential locations during and post the pandemic (Yang et al. 2021 ).

Furthermore, there is another stream of research argued that the pandemic is a unique opportunity to propose and examine models and solutions. Singh et al. ( 2020 ) for example, proposed a model that can help in developing a resilient and responsive food supply chain. Similarly, Russell et al. ( 2020 ) suggested a framework that enables enterprises to understand the uncertainty characteristics within pandemics. Likewise, Hossain et al. ( 2021 ) identified 15 enablers for emergency supply chain within healthcare.

Having that said, many scholars and practitioners call for a global restructuring of supply chains, which entails redesigning of processes, defining of roles and alignment of objectives across all chain members (Michael and Lami 2020 ; Min et al. 2020 ).

The aforementioned debate reveals that there is no agreement among researchers on the outcomes of the pandemic whether it impacted supply chains positively, negatively or it had no impact but an opportunity to suggest and validate new models and solutions. Nonetheless, the number of studies tackling the impact of COVID-19 on supply chains has continued to expand at an exponential rate.

Accordingly, a comprehensive review of the frequently cited research studies, which can significantly inform future research, is lacking. Therefore the objective of this study is to (1) critically review the frequently cited papers indexed through Scopus and Google Scholar, (2) analyze the research methods adopted, highlight the main industry sectors investigated and summarize the main contexts explored, and finally to (3) to report any themes that might emerge.

Using COVID-19/coronavirus and supply chain/logistics as key search words, it was found that within Scopus and Google scholar, there are 770 research studies that tackled the subject. However, after removing duplication, limiting the research to English papers only and excluding out of scope studies, the final research papers are a set of 95 papers published during the period 2020–2021.

The descriptive analysis of the 95 research studies provided interesting insights on many aspects including the industries investigated, the contexts explored, the research methods adopted, the data gathering tool employed and the findings reported. A deep review of the described literature led to the emergence of four important themes; namely, (1) COVID-19 is a complete threat to supply chains and organizations, (2) COVID-19 is an opportunity for certain industries, (3) COVID-19 is both an opportunity and a threat and finally (4) COVID-19 enabled proposing models that proved to be viable in minimizing the impact of any pandemic. The rest of the paper is structured as follows Sect.  2 presents a review of the literature. Section  3 highlights the methodology adopted. Section  4 presents the discussion and the analysis, followed by the findings in Sect.  5 . Section 6 discusses the conclusion including the theoretical and practical contributions as well as the limitations of the study.

2 Literature review

COVID-19 nightmare is still ongoing with the virus continuing to mutate into what is called now Omicron spreading rapidly with tough months waiting ahead. The threats that the pandemic brought were immense impacting economies, industries, organizations and individuals (Kumar 2020 ; Zhang 2021 ; Mahajan and Tomar 2020 ).

The challenge is how to contain the consequences of what has already occurred and what are the lessons learned that should enable decision makers to take informed decisions. While globalization and outsourcing improved supply chain efficiency and effectiveness, they also exposed businesses to many risks and uncertainties because what happens in any part of the world can have many-fold ripple effects on other nations (Michael and Lami 2020 ; Dhiaf et al. 2021 ). Evidently, it took few days for the epidemic that was initially spotted in China, to reach every corner in the world causing unprecedented pandemic.

Correspondingly, many are claiming that supply chains need to be restructured (Michael and Lami 2020 ) with organizations defining and aligning objectives within their firms and across the supply chain (Min et al. 2020 ). Evidently, early studies of COVID 19 disruptions on supply chain were highly focused into supply chain risk management perspective, Alhawari et al. ( 2021 ) focus of supply chain risk management were based on supply chain resiliency management. However the research was limited interms of the context, bibliographic search, theoretical focus and supply chain performance assessment of COVID 19 impact etc. While studies by Hassan and Abbasi ( 2021 ) discussed the various aspects of the supply chain integration extents, contingencies and performance, review of the study was limited to duration in terms of period between Jan 2015 and April 2020. While the Covid 19 impact on supply chain was wide spread between March 2020 and until March 2023, these studies largely ignored the big impact of the various aspects that are unfolded in this study.

Other researchers such as Al-Mansour and Al-Ajmi ( 2020 ), argue that businesses need to revisit their strategies, connect more with their supply chains and should double their efforts with regards to partnerships with other organizations. Additionally, revisiting resources and reallocating them could be another important step that organizations need to consider during pandemics in order to remain operationally competitive (Warrington et al. 2021 ; Atayah et al. 2021 ).

Although researches regarding COVID-19’s impact on supply chains is being conducted, there is a need to shed the light on what has been achieved so far so as to provide guidance to both practitioners and researchers. The next section will discuss the literature review methodology adopted in this research to achieve the intended objectives, review analysis, findings and discussions.

3 Research methodology

Since the research objective in most cases defines the research strategy (Creswell 1999 ; Denzin and Lincoln 1998 ), this research adopts grounded theory methodology. Grounded theory is well known qualitative research design that allows for concepts to be explored, relationships to be identified and themes to emerge accordingly (Strauss and Corbin 1990 ).

Therefore, this research intends to explore the studies tackled COVID-19/Coronavirus and supply chains/logistics to identify what has been achieved in this field using systematic literature review methodology. Specifically, we used the resources available on Google Scholar and Scopus to search for all related studies that have been published during the period from January 2020 to December 2021. We used these two resources because of their comprehensiveness in terms of what has been published regardless of the type and recency of publications (Zhao and Strotmann 2015 ). The search was initially run using four key words “Covid-19 and Supply Chain”, “Coronavirus and Supply Chain”, “COVID-19 and Logistics, and “Coronavirus and logistics”.

As illustrated in Fig. 1 and using google scholar to search for research studies that had COVID-19/coronavirus and supply chain/logistics words in their titles, a total of 361 studies were identified. Likewise and using the same key words, a total of 409 studies were identified through Scopus. After removing duplications, entries that are only citations and patents, 539 records were excluded leaving 231 studies that can be subject for further screening. During the screening process, 62 papers were found out of the scope and therefore excluded. Finally, the remaining 111 studies were furtherly examined and investigated with 16 articles found to be not in English language therefore excluded. As a result a total of 95 articles were found eligible to be included in this review.

Article collection and Screening process

3.1 Type of publications

Out of the ninety five publications, eighty nine were published as journal articles, two as conference papers, one book chapter and three as organization reports and discussion papers. The pie chart below (Fig. 2 ) summarizes the types of these publications. With 94% of the studies included are peer reviewed journal articles it is undoubtedly appropriate to claim that the inferences made are genuine and valid.

Article publication type

3.2 Number of citations

Notwithstanding that a good number of articles that investigated COVID-19’s impact on supply chains have been cited significantly, two gained high attention and were cited more than 300 times. Interestingly enough, both article were coined by the same author namely; Dr. Dmitry Ivanov, the professor at Berlin School of Economics and Law in Germany. One reason for such high number of citations for both studies could be that the author neither specified a certain industry nor focused on one context, so his findings were of a great help to many researchers across many fields. In addition, while in one study, the author warned for the threats that COVID-19 introduced, in the second study he proposed a model that can help supply chains become agile, resilient and quickly recover after the pandemic.

Another spotted study that received a great deal of attention, is the work of Belhadi et al. ( 2021 ) which was published in the year 2021 but has been cited 127 times. Although the authors investigated COVID-19’s impact on one of the mostly affected industries i.e. automobile and airline but they provided very good insights on how industry 4.0 technologies such as big data can strongly help these industries recover and alleviate their performance. Table 1 below highlights the top 20 cited studies including author name and publication year.

3.3 Publication Journals

An interesting finding is that the ninety eight articles were published in seventy nine journals with ten journals published two articles each. This wide spectrum of journals uncovers the increasing interest among many research institutions and publishers in this important research topic. Table 2 below highlights the ten important journals that published two articles each.

3.4 Research methodologies used

The qualitative research design has been mostly used by many researchers across different fields and industries. Evidently, seventy research studies out of the ninety five, adopted qualitative methods focusing on three main data gathering tools; literature review, interviews and case studies. Moreover, eighteen studies employed quantitative methods using surveys and secondary data. Finally, seven studies used triangulation complementing the qualitative phase with a quantitative one. The bar chart in Fig. 3 below illustrates the different research methods used.

Articles based on research method

3.5 Data gathering tools

Qualitative research design is dominating research methodologies employed by most researchers. Numerically, 41 studies used literature review as their main source of data. Next comes secondary data with 20 studies relied an existing data already gathered by other researchers or provided by external parties. Also, 15 research studies used interviews with industry experts or organizations executives as their main source of data. Surveys represented only 8.4% of all data gathering tools, in other words, only 8 studies used self-reported data. Case studies came next after surveys with 7 studies adopted such data gathering tool. Surveys were also triangulated with interviews in certain occasion and with secondary data in other occasions with 3 studies and 1 study followed these approaches respectively. The pie chart in Fig. 4 below visualize the different data gathering tools used.

Article based on data gathering tools

3.6 Industries covered

In total, thirty seven studies didn’t cover any specific industry, rather discussed COVID-19’s impact on supply chains in general. The remaining publications covered twelve different industries namely; twenty studies covered the food industry, eight studies covered healthcare and the same number too covered logistics and shipping industry. Moreover, the fashion industry was covered by five studies while four articles focused on the agriculture industry with the same number covering the automobile and airline industry. Additionally, both manufacturing and pharmaceutical industries were covered by three articles each. Finally, two articles covered the IT industry while one article focused on each of the after mentioned industries; hospitality, humanitarian and real estate. Table 2 below summarizes the industries explored by the ninety five studies (Fig. 5 ).

Articles based on Industry type

3.7 Contexts explored

The studies reviewed covered many contexts and regions, to elaborate, forty six papers explored COVID-19’s impact on Asian countries. In the same vein, eighteen papers covered north American countries including the UA and Canada. Europe came third with eleven studies covering the UK, Spain, Ireland, Germany and France. Furthermore, Australia was explored by three studies while Africa and South America were covered by one study each. Finally, twenty four research studies covered the entire world. Figure 6 below, highlights the main contexts explored by the ninety five papers.

Publications based on region

4 Discussion

Such as any other pandemics, COVID-19 impacted many industries, supply chains and regions leading to disastrous consequences on individuals and organizations (Zhang 2021 ; Butt 2021a , b ; Thompson and Anderson 2021 ; Sen et al. 2020 ; Atkinson et al. 2020 ). Many scholars, researchers and practitioner investigated the threats created and the risks imposed on businesses due to many measures imposed by governments in an attempt to lessen the spread of the pandemic (Timilsina et al. 2020 ; Karmaker et al. 2021 ; Burgos and Ivanov 2021 ). Few have benefited from the contagion and sought to seize many opportunities generated such as those in the pharmaceutical, transportation as well as ocean carriers and containership industries (Yang et al. 2021 ; Wackett 2021 ; Hobbs 2021 ). This systematic review of 95 articles provides very interesting insights on what has been researched and investigated so far from different aspects. Firstly, peer reviewed articles seem to be the most rigorous yet acceptable research output as 94% of the studies reviewed were journal articles. Secondly, while there are many studies attempted to uncover COVID-19’s impact on supply chains, few have gained high attention especially those that not only highlighted the threats faced by business but also provided a roadmap on how to recover the pandemic consequences. To elaborate, Ivanov’s ( 2020a , b ) two research studies which were among the highly cited papers (i.e. 867 and 313), not only they used simulation based analysis to predict the impact of the pandemic but also proposed a model that can make supply chains agile, resilient, and sustainable. Another study that was significantly cited (i.e. 261 citations), is the work of Rizoua et al. ( 2020 ). The researchers sought to summarize the impact of COVID19 on the food supply chain wherein they also provided the opportunities created by the pandemic recommending that more robust measures need to be undertaken in the production, processing and delivery of food.

As far as the journals used in publishing these 89 articles is concerned, it is importantly noticed that a gigantic number of journals were involved, with only 10 journals published 2 articles each. The remaining 69 articles were published in different journals. This could clearly indicate that COVID-19’s impact on supply chains is of a chief concern for many journals and publishing institutions.

From the research methodology perspective, it can be rationally claimed that relatively, there is a dearth of both mixed method and quantitative driven studies compared with the qualitatively oriented ones. To clarify, 70 studies adopted qualitative methods verses 18 studies employed quantitative tools and only 7 studies triangulated their quantitative phase with qualitative one. Among those who used mixed method approach and gained high attention is the work of Shafi et al. ( 2020 ) which was cited more than 230 times. The significance of the study stems from being one of two studies that covered the Pakistani context summarizing the pandemic’s negative effects on the country’s economy including financial, supply chain disruption, decrease in demand, reduction in sales and diminution of profits. It would be recommended that more studies are to be conducted using mixed method approach, since some results could be sometime inconclusive using a single approach, triangulation therefore, can assist in uncovering hidden relationships or explain any heterogeneity in the data (Younis et al. 2020 ).

In relation to the research methods employed, and from a data gathering point of view, the review indicates that literature review was used the most as 41 studies relied on extant literature. Alternatively, 21 studies used secondary data, 15 used interviews, 8 adopted surveys, 7 case studied organizations, 3 used a mix of surveys and interviews and 1 used both primary and secondary data. This diversification of data gathering tools is another indicator that researchers are endeavoring to employ many tools to help understand the behaviors of pandemics so as to lessen their impact on businesses and supply chains.

As long as the industries covered is concerned, it is indeed interesting to notice that 38% of the studies (or 37 papers) didn’t address a certain industry rather they adopted a holistic view aiming to be conclusive and offer an overall deep insights. Controversially, the remaining 58 studies focused on specific industries with the food being the mostly targeted industry with 20 research papers. The respective studies investigated the impact of COVID-19 on different food supply markets such as vegetables (Zhang 2021 ), coffee (Pereira et al. 2021 ), chicken and halal products (Asih et al. 2021 ), hogs (Wang et al. 2020 ) and seafood (Siamhan and Trirath 2020 ). Additionally, few other researchers studied the impact of COVID-19 on the entire food supply chain. Examples include, Rizoua et al. ( 2020 ), Singh et al. ( 2020 ), Aday and Aday ( 2020 ), Mahajan and Tomar ( 2020 ), Kumar et al. ( 2021 ), Thilmany et al. ( 2021 ), Cariappa et al. ( 2021 ) and many more. The healthcare as well as shipping & logistics were the second highly researched industries with 8 studies each.

Amongst the highly cited studies that focused on the healthcare industry is the work of Larraneta et al. ( 2020 ) who investigated how the 3D printing enabled Irish organizations to produce different healthcare consumables in the fight against COVID-19. Interestingly enough, the second study within the healthcare that gained high attention is Novak and Loy’s ( 2020 ) study, who also examined the 3D printing response to COVID-19 challenges within Australia. Similarly, few other researchers measured the overall impact of COVID-19 on the entire healthcare system in different contexts (Rahman et al. 2021 ; Jha and Sharma 2020 ; Helmold et al. 2020 ; Hossain et al. 2021 ; Warrington et al. 2021 ; Jamshidiantehrani et al. 2020 ; Lemenuel-Diot 2020 ). On the shipping and logistics industry, Sharma et al. ( 2020a , b ) is one of the fairly cited studies which recommended developing internal capabilities to lessen the dependency on other countries when it comes to shipping. In the same vein, Srinivas and Marathe ( 2021 ) examined COVID-19’s impact on last‐mile delivery practices in India. Other researchers, examined COVID-19’s impact on commercial transport drivers (Kenneth 2020 ) on container ports capability (Russell et al. 2020 ) and finally on logistics costs and business competitiveness (Nguyen 2020 ).

The fashion industry came third with 5 studies highlighting how COVID-19 impacted several aspect of the supply chain such as; the reasons behind the lack of social sustainability in the clothing industry (Majumdar et al. 2020 ), the impact on apparel workers (Sen et al. 2020 ), the recovery challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic (Paul et al. 2021 ), the vulnerability and capability factors and their relationship with supply chain resilience (Ali et al. 2021 ) and finally, strategies to lessen the impact of COVID-19 on the apparel supply chain (Taqi et al. 2020a , b ).

The remining industries received lesser attention as only 4 studies addressed automobile and airline (Belhadi et al. 2021 ; Handfield et al. 2020 ; Free and Hecimovic 2021 ; Ishida 2020 ) with the same number also covered the agriculture industry (Sharma et al. 2020a , b ; Timilsina et al. 2020 ; Cariappa et al. 2021 ; Joshi et al. 2020 ). The manufacturing and pharmaceutical industries were targeted by 3 studies each (Min & Jianwen 2020 ; Agrawal et al. 2020 ; Chen et al. 2020 ) and (Jha and Sharma 2020 ; Helmold et al. 2020 ; Jamshidiantehrani et al. 2020 ). While 2 studies focused on the IT industry (Modgil et al. 2021 ; Ishida 2020 ) and one study covered each of the humanitarian, real estate and hospitality industries (Thompson and Anderson 2021 ; Uchehara et al. 2020 ; Gonzalez-Torres et al. 2020 ).

From a context perspective, the review shows that 46 studies addressed Asian countries. While India being on the top of the list with 15 studies, china and Bangladesh came second with 5 studies each. Among the highly cited studies within the Indian context is the researches of Singh et al. ( 2020 ), Sharma et al. ( 2020a , b ), Mahajan and Tomar ( 2020 ), Agrawal et al. ( 2020 ), Kumar et al. ( 2021 ), Mahajan et al. ( 2021 ), Srinivas and Marathe ( 2021 ), Cariappa et al. ( 2021 ), Kumar ( 2020 ). As far as China is concerned, three studies are gaining attention which are Min and Jianwen ( 2020 ), Wang et al. ( 2020 ), Min et al. ( 2020 ). On the Bangladeshi context, four studies are being cited fairly including: (Karmaker et al. 2021 ; Taqi et al. 2020a , b ; Sen et al. 2020 ; Paul et al. 2021 ).

North American continent came second after Asia with 15 studies covering both the US and Canada. The US was covered by 14 studies with van Hoek’s ( 2020a , b ) two studies among the highly cited papers at which the author indicates the threats and opportunities COVID-19 has created. Other US related studies include; (Lemenuel-Diot 2020 ; Warrington et al. 2021 ; Kenneth 2020 ; Thilmany et al. 2021 ; Russell et al. 2020 ; Atkinson et al. 2020 ; Thompson and Anderson 2021 ; Xiong et al. 2021 ; Nikolopoulos et al. 2020 ; Handfield et al. 2020 ; Hobbs 2021 ; Höhler and Lansink 2021 ; Márquez and Tolosa 2021 ).

Europe followed Asia and North America with 11 studies spread across the continent. Example of the highly cited papers include the study of Nikolopoulos et al. ( 2020 ) wherein the researchers provided predictive analytics tools for forecasting and planning during a pandemics. Other studies that gained attention is the work of Handfield et al. ( 2020 ) at which the authors claimed that Brexit and the USA imposing tariffs is creating new obstacles that redirects the flow of supply chains. Additional studies that were undertaken within Europe include; (Larraneta et al. 2020 ; El Baz and Ruel 2021 ; Gonzalez-Torres et al. 2020 ; Burgos and Ivanov 2021 ; Höhler and Lansink 2021 ; Uchehara et al. 2020 ; Helmold et al. 2020 ; Do et al. 2021 ; Keshta et al. 2020 ).

Australia ranked 4th in terms of studies, as only 3 articles were undertaken within the Australian context which include: (Free and Hecimovic 2021 ; Novak and Loy 2020 ; Rahman et al. 2021 ). Finally, south America and Africa had one study each namely; Pereira et al. ( 2021 ) work in Brazil and Akintokunbo and Adim ( 2020 ) research in Nigeria.

It is equally important to mention that 24 studies were not regionally driven, rather they were general with some of them very highly cited. Clarifyingly, Ivanov’s ( 2020a , b ) two research papers are among the significantly cited studies that were general in nature. Furthermore the following are also examples of highly cited papers that were not undertaken in a certain context: (Rizoua et al. 2020 ; Golan et al. 2020 ; Belhadi et al. 2021 ; Sarkis 2020 ; Mollenkopf et al. 2020 ; Ketchen and Craighead 2020 ; Djankov & Panizza 2020 ; Timilsina et al. 2020 ; Hashem et al. 2020 ).

A deeper and critical review of the 95 studies has led to the emergence of four distinctive themes in terms of incumbent researchers view of COVID-19’s impact on supply chains. The pie chart within Fig. 7 below highlights these 4 themes followed by a detailed discussion.

Research themes emerged

COVID-19 was a complete threat on supply chains and brought about many types of risks. Example of researchers supporting this argument is Shafi et al. ( 2020 ). The researchers found that COVID-19 caused financial, supply chain disruption, decrease in demand, reduction in sales and profit risks. Similarly, van Hoek ( 2020a , b ) concluded that COVID-19 impacted businesses negatively since most of them lacked preparedness and had shortcomings of response plans. Furthermore, Aday and Aday ( 2020 ) claimed that the pandemic had a severe consequences on organizations and countries. From a social risk perspective, few researchers claim that the pandemic had several social threats. For example COVID019 impacted the well-being of individuals (Mollenkopf et al. 2020 ), led to deferred payment of workers salaries and employee layoffs (Sen et al. 2020 ), and finaly affected consumers’ livelihood (Cariappa et al. 2021 ). Table 3 below summarizes the 18 highly cites studies that support this view.

COVID-19 created many opportunities for supply chains in general and for certain industries in particular. To elaborate,14 studies concluded that COVID-19 offered unparalleled opportunities and that the pandemic had positive impacts to the nations, regions and the world (Majumdar et al. 2020 ). Moreover, the pandemic forced organizations to use Industry 4.0 technologies which had the potential to transform and help the humanity and enabled businesses to collaborate to improve their performance (Acioli et al. 2021 ). The same findings were also echoed by (Modgil et al. 2021 ) who concluded that within the pandemic, the implementation of artificial intelligence minimized the impact of disruptions, and offered personalized solutions to both upstream and downstream supply chain stakeholders. Furthermore, the pandemic pushed some organizations to use blockchain technology and therefore they had lesser negative impact caused by the pandemic compared with other organizations (Xiong et al. 2021 ). Table 4 below summarizes the top 9 cited studies that supported this argument.

COVID-19 created threats and opportunities.

34% of the studies reviewed, concluded that while COVID-19 created many threats, it has also generated many opportunities. For example although COVID-19 pandemic generated many challenges in the supply chain and the food industry, but it created several opportunities for businesses to revise existing measures related to processing and delivery of goods (Rizoua et al. 2020 ). Because the pandemic has come in different waves, the opportunities for supply chain organisations would also be in different waves. Early business opportunities of alternate business model have been instrumental for small and medium business organization to capture the market in 2020, which have faded away giving with some degrees of benefits. Emerging out from the crisis supply chain organization could transform from ‘new normal” to “next normal” and that could be the focus for organisations in order to provide more stronger, resilient and sustainable supply chain solutions. Besides, COVID-19 generated some short-term environmental sustainability gains whilst long-term effects are still require further research (Sarkis 2020 ). In the same manner, Larraneta et al. ( 2020 ) argue that the pandemic led to shortages of medical supplies which negatively impacted organizations and individuals. However it also pressurized organization to use advanced techniques such as 3D printing in the fight against COVID-19 which led to cost optimization. Lastly, COVID-19 challenges allowed buying firms to apply agile production and distribution practices and modifying inventory policies leading to reduction in costs (Butt 2021a , b ). Table 5 below highlights the most significant studies supporting this proposition.

Studies that provided a model.

Whilst some studies investigated the threats and opportunities of COVID-19, other studies contributed differently by identifying barriers to supply chain efficiency, pinpointing some risk mitigation strategies, proposing a model that can help reduce the impact of risks or maximize the opportunities of the pandemic and finaly provided soecific recommendations. All these studies were grouped unde one theme called “proposed a model”. Table 6 below lists few of the highly cited studies that proposed a mode. An example of highly cited studies include Ivanov’s ( 2020a , b ) paper. The researcher proposed viable supply chain (VSC) model that can help make organizations agile, resilient and sustainable. Likewise, Singh et al. ( 2020 ) proposed a model that can help in developing a resilient and responsive food supply chain. Also, Nikolopoulos et al. ( 2020 ) provided predictive analytics tools for forecasting and planning during pandemics. Equally, Srinivas and Marathe ( 2021 ) proposed a “mobile warehouse”. The researchers argue that such mobile warehouse can be an effective solution to last‐mile logistics issues during pandemics such as COVID-19. Lastly, Russell et al. ( 2020 ) proposed framework that can help in understanding uncertainty characteristics and assessing various elements of capacity within the supply chain.

Table 7 proposed the various categorical supply chain risks that are identified through the review and provided proposed mitigation strategies for providing sustainable supply chain strategies at Covid times. These resilience strategies are vey imperative elements for organisations to strive their competition and preparing to cope-up with the new normal.

The objective of this research is to thoroughly analyze the literature that focus on understanding how COVID-19 impacted supply chains. Google Scholar and Scopus are used to locate the related publications using COVID-19/coronavirus and supply chain/logistics as keywords. A total of 95 relevant publications are systematically analyzed from different aspects including, publication type, number of citations each study received, publication journals, research methodologies used, data gathering tool employed, industries targeted and finally contexts explored. Four interesting themes emerged grouping the results achieved by most researchers in the field. To elaborate 27 studies found that COVID-19 posed several threats including, social, operational, financial, economic and supply chain risks. Alternatively, 14 studies claimed that COVID-19 opened up enourmus opportuties and led to the creation of many “unicorns” (companies that worth more than $1Bilion before being listed in stock markets).

Moreover, 32 studies concluded that while COVID-19 posed many thrats, it also created unparalleled opportunites in different sectors and industries such as containerships, online retailing, and delivery services. Finaly 22 studies contributed in a different way, they either identified barriers to suppl chain efficiency, recommended certain strategies to mitigate COVID-19 risks or proposed a model that can help maximizing opportunities and minimizing risks.

5.1 Theoretical contributions

In addition to the detailed analysis and discussion of the 95 articles, the study contributes to theory through the very useful insights drawn with 4 unique themes emerged including; (1) researchers who believe that COVID-19 is a complete threat to supply chains and organizations. (2) researchers who argue that COVID-19 created many opportunities, (3) researchers who are neutral claiming that COVID-19 created both threats and opportunities and finally (4) those who suggested models that can help supply chains overcome the pandemic consequences. With the emergent themes identified in this paper, the authors contribute toward the theoretical body of knowledge by supporting the institutional theory coined by DiMaggio and Powell’s ( 1983 ). The authors claim that firms attempt to adapt to the surrounding environment by adhering to legitimacy rules and regulations from one side and through seeking social fitness from another side (DiMaggio and Powell’s 1983 ). Evidently, and to sustain the pandemic, few businesses attempted to satisfy their stakeholders supporting with stakeholders theory by adhering to the new measurements stipulated by their governments from one side and meeting their customer requirements from another side. Examples include the use of 3D printing by healthcare organizations in Australia to respond to COVID-19 challenges while at the same time meeting customer demand (Novak and Loy 2020 ). Moreover, and due to limitations of last‐mile delivery practices during COVID‐19, few Indian organizations proposed “mobile warehouse” as an effective solution to last‐mile logistics issues (Srinivas and Marathe 2021 ).

5.2 Practical contributions

Undoubtedly, this study acts as an easy reference for decision makers, supply chain professionals, executives and logistics manager intending to understand the pandemic’s impact on supply chains, industries and organizations. Such knowledge can help them mitigate any negative effects the pandemic might impose on their organizations. Similarly, the study highlights the many opportunities created by the pandemic that can be seized to improve the performance of their organizations. Furthermore, the study offers unparalleled opportunity for industry professionals to become acquainted with and knowledgeable about the successful models developed across different industries and within several contexts that can be applied within their organizations.

5.3 Limitations

The limitations of this study are of two folds; firstly, it only covered COVIS-19’s impact of supply chains/logistic systems without specific focus on certain processes within the supply chain such manufacturing or transportation. The reason why the study was general in nature, is because the authors intended to gain an understanding of COVID-19’s overall impact on supply chains and sought to discover how different industries, businesses and contexts reacted to the pandemic. The same approach was adopted by few other researchers including; Singh et al. ( 2020 ), Ishida ( 2020 ), Ivanov ( 2020a , b ), Sarkis ( 2020 ), Acioli et al. ( 2021 ), Golan et al. ( 2020 ). The second limitation is the use of Google Scholar and Scopus only to define the related publications. The authors believe that Google Scholar and Scopus have become a good destination when it comes to publications since they provides journal articles or links that lead to the required publication in the research space (Younis et al. 2021 ).

5.4 Future studies

This paper provided good insights on the areas that other researchers could pursue to deepen their understanding on COVID-19’s double edged sward, and how businesses can use their business acumen to convert the challenges into real opportunities. The study also opens the door wide for other researchers to investigate COIVD-19’s impact on each of the five stages of supply chain operations reference (SCOR) model, i.e. plan, source, make, deliver and return (Younis et al. 2021 ).

The insights from the fourth theme emerged in this study, namely, the models proposed and tested to fight against COVIS-19, can provide very fruitful research avenue for other researchers to explore the applicability of these models on other industries or within other contexts. Finally, the study might be useful for researchers interested in exploring how industry 4.0 practices can help fighting against COVID-19.

Acioli C, Scavarda A, Reis A (2021) Applying Industry 4.0 technologies in the COVID–19 sustainablechains. Int J Prod Performance Manage 70(5):988–1016. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPPM-03-2020-0137

Aday S, Aday MS (2020) Impact of COVID-19 on the food supply chain. Food Qual Saf 4(4):167–180

Google Scholar  

Agrawal S, Jamwal A, Gupta S (2020) Effect of COVID-19 on the Indian economy and supply chain https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202005.0148.v1

Akintokunbo OO, Adim CV (2020) Covid-19 and supply chain disruption: a conceptual review. Asian J Econ Bus Account 19(2):40–47

Alhawari O, Bhutta K, Muzzafar A (2021) Supply chain emerging aspects and future directions in the age of covid-19: a systematic review. Uncertain Supply Chain Manag 9(2):429–446

Ali M, Rhaman SB, Frederico GF (2021) Capability components of supply chain resilience for readymade garments (RMG) sector in Bangladesh during COVID-19. Mod Supply Chain Res Appl. https://doi.org/10.1108/MSCRA-06-2020-0015

Article   Google Scholar  

Al-Mansour JF, Al-Ajmi SA (2020) Coronavirus’ COVID-19’-supply chain disruption and implications for strategy, economy, and management. J Asian Finance Econ Bus 7(9):659–672

Amalia S, Darma DC, Maria S (2020) Supply chain management and the Covid-19 outbreak: optimizing its role for Indonesia. Curr Res J Soc Sci Human 3(2):196–202

Asih HM, Firmansyah F, Faishal M (2021) Analysis of halal and marketing strategy for broiler chickens’ supply chain during Covid-19: a case study in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. TEKNIK 42(1):87–96

Atayah OF, Dhiaf MM, Najaf K, Frederico GF (2021) Impact of COVID-19 on financial performance of logistics firms: evidence from G-20 countries. J Glob Oper Strateg Sour. https://doi.org/10.1108/JGOSS-03-2021-0028

Atkinson CL, McCue C, Prier E, Atkinson AM (2020) Supply chain manipulation, misrepresentation, and magical thinking during the COVID-19 pandemic. Am Rev Public Admin 50(6–7):628–634. https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074020942055

Belhadi A, Kamble S, Jabbour CJC, Gunasekaran A, Ndubisi NO, Venkatesh M (2021) Manufacturing and service supply chain resilience to the COVID-19 outbreak: lessons learned from the automobile and airline industries. Technol Forecast Soc Chang 163:120447

Burgos D, Ivanov D (2021) Food retail supply chain resilience and the COVID-19 pandemic: a digital twin-based impact analysis and improvement directions. Transport Res Part E Logist Transport Rev 152:102412

Butt AS (2021a) Strategies to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on supply chain disruptions: a multiple case analysis of buyers and distributors. Int J Logist Manag. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-11-2020-0455

Butt AS (2021b) Understanding the implications of pandemic outbreaks on supply chains: an exploratory study of the effects caused by the COVID-19 across four South Asian countries and steps taken by firms to address the disruptions. Int J Phys Distrib Logist Manag. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPDLM-08-2020-0281

Cariappa AGA, Acharya KK, Adhav CA, Sendhil R, Ramasundaram P (2021) COVID-19 induced lockdown effects on agricultural commodity prices and consumer behaviour in India –Implications for food loss and waste management. Socioecon Plann Sci. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seps.2021.101160

Chen T, Wang YC, Chiu MC (2020) Assessing the robustness of a factory amid the COVID-19 pandemic: a fuzzy collaborative intelligence approach. Healthcare 18:431–453

Creswell JW (1999) Mixed-method research: introduction and application. Elsevier, Handbook of Educational Policy, pp 455–472

Denzin NK, Lincoln YS (1998) Introduction: entering the field of qualitative research. Sage, Thousand Oaks

Dhiaf MM, Najaf K, Marashdeh H, Atayah OF, Frederico GF (2021) The role of project’s initiatives focused on the reduction of environmental footprints during COVID-19: evidence from the United States firm. Oper Manag Res 1–15

DiMaggio P, Powell W (1983) The iron cage revisited: institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. Am Sociol Rev 48(2):147–160

Djankov S, Panizza U (2020) COVID-19 in developing economies. Centre for Economic Policy Research. E-book https://cepr.org/content/covid-19-developing-countries

Do QN, Mishra N, Wulandhari NBI, Ramudhin A, Sivarajah U, Milligan G (2021) Supply chain agility responding to unprecedented changes: empirical evidence from the UK food supply chain during COVID-19 crisis. Supply Chain Manag Int J 26(6):737–752

El Baz J, Ruel S (2021) Can supply chain risk management practices mitigate the disruption impacts on supply chains’ resilience and robustness? Evidence from an empirical survey in a COVID-19 outbreak era. Int J Prod Econ. 233:107972. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2020.107972

Frederico GF, Kumar V, Garza-Reyes JA (2021a) Impact of the strategic sourcing process on the supply chain response to the COVID-19 effects. Bus Process Manag J (in-press)

Frederico GF, Kumar V, Garza-Reyes JA, Kumar A, Agrawal R (2021b) Impact of I4. 0 technologies and their interoperability on performance: future pathways for supply chain resilience post-COVID-19. Int J Logist Manag (in-press)

Free C, Hecimovic A (2021) Global supply chains after COVID-19: the end of the road for neoliberal globalisation? Acc Audit Account J 34(1):58–84

Goel RK, Saunoris JW, Goel SS (2021) Supply chain performance and economic growth: the impact of COVID-19 disruptions. J Policy Model 43(2):298–316. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JPOLMOD.2021.01.003

Golan MS, Jernegan LH, Linkov I (2020) Trends and applications of resilience analytics in supply chain modeling: systematic literature review in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Environ Syst Decis 1(1):1–22

Gonzalez-Torres T, Rodrıguez-Sanchez JL, Pelechano-Barahona E (2021) Managing relationships in the Tourism Supply Chain to overcome epidemic outbreaks: the case of COVID-19 and the hospitality industry in Spain. Int J Hosp Manag 92:102733

Handfield RB, Graham G, Burns L (2020) Corona virus, tariffs, trade wars and supply chain evolutionary design. Int J Oper Prod Manag 40(10):1649–1660

Hashem NM, Gonzalez-Bulnes A, Rodriguez-Morales A (2020) Animal welfare and livestock supply chain sustainability under the COVID-19 outbreak: an overview. Front Vet Sci 7:582528

Hassan NM, Abbasi MN (2021) A review of supply chain integration extents, contingencies and performance: a post Covid-19 review. Oper Res Perspect 8:100183

Helmold M, Einmahl M, Rassmann KJ, Carvalho LN (2020) Lessons from the COVID-19 situation: Rethinking global supply chain networks and strengthening supply management in public procurement in Germany. IUBH Discussion Papers - Transport & Logistik, No. 4/2020, IUBH Internationale Hochschule, Bad Honnef.

Hobbs JE (2021) Food supply chain resilience and the COVID-19 pandemic: What have we learned? Can J Agric Econ. https://doi.org/10.1111/cjag.12279

Höhler J, Lansink AO (2021) Measuring the impact of COVID-19 on stock prices and profits in the food supply chain. Agribusiness 37(1):171–186

Hossain MK, Thakur V, Mangla SK (2021) Modeling the emergency health-care supply chains: responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. J Bus Ind Mark 37:1623–1639

Ishida S (2020) Perspectives on supply chain management in a pandemic and the post-COVID-19 era. IEEE Eng Manage Rev. https://doi.org/10.1109/EMR.2020.3016350

Ivanov D (2020a) Predicting the impacts of epidemic outbreaks on global supply chains: a simulation-based analysis on the coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2) case. Transport Res Part E Logist Transport Rev. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tre.2020.101922

Ivanov, D. (2020b) Viable supply chain model: integrating agility, resilience and sustainability perspec- tives. Lessons from and thinking beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. Ann Oper Res (in press)

Jamshidiantehrani M, Ahmadzadeh A, Rahimisadr M, Abdolmohammadi M (2020) Identifying and prioritizing the factors affecting the agility of the supply chain of pharmaceutical company using multi-criteria decision-making methods in COVID-19 pandemic. Sys Rev Pharm 11:371–381

Jha R, Sharma A (2020) India's pharmaceutical industry: global supply chain and governance in the post-COVID-19 World. ASARC Working Paper

Joshi P, Kulkarni U, Munje S, Kulkarni S (2020) Impact of Covid-19 pandemic on Indian fruits and vegetables export, postharvest management supply chain and future strategies. Soc Adv Hum Nat 6:4–8

Karmaker CL, Ahmed T, Ahmed S, Ali SM, Moktadir MA, Kabir G (2021) Improving supply chain sustainability in the context of COVID-19 pandemic in an emerging economy: exploring drivers using an integrated model. Sustain Prod Consum 26:411–427. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2020.09.019

Karunathilake K (2020) Positive and negative impacts of COVID-19, an analysis with special reference to challenges on the supply chain in South Asian countries. J Soc Econ Dev 12(4):34–45

Kenneth M (2020) Commercial transport during a pandemic: network analysis to reconcile COVID-19 diffusion and vital supply chain resilience. American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine

Keshta J, Elmesmary H, Obrecht M (2020) Investigating the impact of covid-19 on maritime supply chain sustainability and technology: a review. In: ICAMS 2020, 8th international conference on advanced materials and systems

Ketchen DJ Jr, Craighead CW (2020) Research at the intersection of entrepreneurship, supply chain management, and strategic management: Opportunities highlighted by COVID-19. J Manag 46:1330–1341

Khudhair HY, Alsaud AB, Alsharm A, Alkaabi A, AlAdeedi A (2020) The impact of COVID-19 on supply chain and human resource management practices and future marketing. Int J Supply Chain Manag 9(5):1681

Kumar A, Mangla SK, Kumar P, Song M (2021) Mitigate risks in perishable food supply chains: learning from COVID-19. Technol Forecast Soc Chang 166:120643

Kumar R (2020) COVID-19 global pandemic: impact on management of supply chain. Int J Emerg Technol Adv Eng, 2250–2459

Larraneta E, Dominguez-Robles J, Lamprou DA (2020) Additive manufacturing can assist in the fight against COVID-19 and other pandemics and impact on the global supply chain. Print Addit Manuf 7(3):100–103

Lemenuel-Diot A, Clinch B, Hurt AC, Boutry P, Laurent J, Leddin M, Frings S, Charoin, JE (2020) A COVID-19 transmission model informing medication development and supply chain needs. medRxiv a license, medRxiv preprint https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.11.23.20237404

Mahajan K, Tomar S (2020) Here today, gone tomorrow: COVID-19 and supply chain disruption. Working Paper No. 28, Ashoka University, Department of Economics

Mahajan K, Tomar S (2021) COVID-19 and supply chain disruption: evidence from food markets in India. Am J Agr Econ 103(1):35–52

Majumdar A, Shaw M, Sinha SK (2020) COVID-19 debunks the myth of socially sustainable supply chain: a case of the clothing industry in South Asian countries. Sustain Prod Consum 24:150–155

Márquez R, Tolosa L, Celis MT (2021) Understanding COVID-19 effect on the U.S. supply chain of strategic products: important factors, current situation, and future perspective. Revista Ciencia e Ingeniería 42(1):2–10. ISSN 1316-7081. ISSN Elect. 2244-8780

Michael T, Lami M (2020) A Bug in the System and the Weakest Link Mantra; Lessons from COVID-19 for Resilient Global Supply Chain. Int J Res Sci Innov 34–67

Min S, Zhang X, Li G (2020) A snapshot of food supply chain in wuhan under the COVID-19 pandemic. China Agric Econ Rev 12(4):689–704

Min C, Jianwen L (2020) Influence of COVID-19 on manufacturing industry and corresponding countermeasures from supply chain Perspective. J Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ 12–34

Modgil S, Singh RK, Hannibal C (2021) Artificial intelligence for supply chain resilience: learning from Covid-19. Int J Logist Manag. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-02-2021-0094

Mollenkopf DA, Ozanne LK, Stolze HJ (2020) A transformative supply chain response to COVID-19. J Serv Manag 32(2):190–202

Nguyen HK (2020) Combining DEA and ARIMA models for partner selection in the supply chain of Vietnam’s construction industry. Mathematics 8:866

Nikolopoulos K, Punia S, Schäfers A, Tsinopoulos C, Vasilakis C (2020) Forecasting and planning during a pandemic: COVID-19 growth rates, supply chain disruptions, and governmental decisions. Eur J Oper Res 290(1):99–115

Novak JI, Loy J (2020) A critical review of initial 3D printed products responding to COVID-19 health and supply chain challenges. Emerald Open Res 2:24

Oh S, Moon HC, Zhong Y (2020) Contingency management and supply chain performance in Korea: a COVID-19 pandemic approach. Sustainability 12(23):9823

Paul SK, Chowdhury P, Moktadir MA, Lau KH (2021) Supply chain recovery challenges in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic. J Bus Res 136:316–329

Pereira MMO, Silva ME, Hendry LC (2021) Supply chain sustainability learning: the COVID- 19 impact on emerging economy suppliers. Supply Chain Manag Int J 26(6):715–736

Putri MDPW, Xu C, Akwetteh LN (2020) A literature review of research between supply chain constraints issues and decree of the government of Indonesia during Covid-19. Int J Sci Res Publ 10(10):31. ISSN 2250-3153

Rahman T, Taghikhah F, Paul SK, Shukla N, Agarwal R (2021) An agent-based model for supply chain recovery in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Comput Ind Eng 158:107401

Rizoua M, Galanakisa IM, Aldawoudb TMS, Galanakis CM (2020) Safety of foods, food supply chain and environment within the COVID-19 pandemic. Trends Food Sci Technol 102(8):293–299

Russell D, Ruamsook K, Roso V (2020) Managing supply chain uncertainty by building flexibility in container port capacity: a logistics triad perspective and the COVID-19 case. Marit Econ Logist 1–22

Sarkis J (2020) Supply chain sustainability: learning from the COVID-19 pandemic. Int J Oper Prod Manag 41(1):63–73

Sen S, Antara N, Sen S, Chowdhury S (2020) The apparel workers are in the highest vulnerability due to COVID-19: a study on the Bangladesh Apparel Industry. Asia Pacific J Multidiscip Res 8(3):23–33

Shafi M, Liu J, Ren W (2020) Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on micro, small, and Medium-Sized enterprises operating in Pakistan. Res Glob 2:100018

Sharma A, Gupta P, Jha R (2020a) COVID-19: impact on health supply chain and lessons to Be Learnt. J Health Manag 22(2):248–261

Sharma R, Shishodia A, Kamble S, Gunasekaran A, Belhadi A (2020b) Agriculture supply chain risks and COVID-19: mitigation strategies and implications for the practitioners. Int J Log Res Appl. https://doi.org/10.1080/13675567.2020.1830049

Siamhan P, Trirath R (2020) Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on small-scale producers and workers: perspectives from Thailand’s seafood supply chain. Oxfam. https://doi.org/10.21201/2020.6225

Singh S, Kumar R, Panchal R, Tiwari MK (2020) Impact of COVID-19 on logistics systems and disruptions in food supply chain. Int J Prod Res. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2020.1792000

Srinivas SS, Marathe RR (2021) Moving towards ‘mobile warehouse’: last-mile logistics during COVID-19 and beyond. Transport Res Interdiscip Perspect 10:100339

Strauss A, Corbin J (1990) Basic of qualitative research: grounded theory procedures and techniques, 3rd edn. Sage, Newbury Park

Taqi HMM, Ahmed HN, Paul S, Garshasbi M, Ali SM, Kabir G, Paul SK (2020a) Strategies to manage the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in the supply chain: implications for improving economic and social sustainability. Sustainability 12:9483. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12229483

Taqi HM, Ahmed HN, Paul S, Garshasbi M, Ali SM, Kabir G, Paul SK (2020b) Strategies to manage the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in the supply chain: implications for improving economic and social sustainability”. Sustainability 12(22):9483

Thilmany D, Canales E, Low SA, Boys K (2021) "Local food supply chain dynamics and resilience during COVID-19. Appl Econ Perspect Policy 43(1):86–104

Thompson DDP, Anderson R (2021) The COVID-19 response: considerations for future humanitarian supply chain and logistics management research. J Humanit Logist Supply Chain Manag 11(2):19. https://doi.org/10.1108/JHLSCM-01-2021-0006

Timilsina B, Adhikari N, Kafle S, Paudel S, Poudel S, Gautam D (2020) Addressing the impact of COVID-19 post-pandemic on farming and agricultural deeds. Asian J Adv Res Rep 11(4):28–35

Uchehara I, Hamma-Adama M, Obiri KA, Jafarifar N, Moore D (2020) Impacts and risk management of COVID-19 pandemic on real estate supply chain. Int J Real Estate Stud 14(1):23–34

Van Hoek R (2020a) Research opportunities for a more resilient post-COVID-19 supply chain–closing the gap between research findings and industry practice. Int J Oper Prod Manag 40(4):341–355

van Hoek R (2020b) Responding to COVID-19 supply chain risks–insights from supply chain change management, total cost of ownership and supplier segmentation theory. Logistics 4:23

Wackett M (2021) 2021: a year of Covid variants and milking the freight rate cash cow. the loadstar, available: https://theloadstar.com/2021-a-year-of-covid-variants-and-milking-the-freight-rate-cash-cow/

Wang Y, Wang J, Wang X (2020) COVID-19, supply chain disruption and China’s hog market: a dynamic analysis. China Agric Econ Rev 12(3):427–443

Warrington JS, Crothers JW, Goodwin A, Coulombe L, Hong T, Bryan L, Wojewoda C, Fung M, Warrington G, Clark V, Risley L, Lewis M (2021) All hands-on deck and all decks on hand: surmounting supply chain limitations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Acad Pathol. https://doi.org/10.1177/23742895211011928

Xiong Y, Lam HKS, Kumar A, Ngai EWT, Xiu C, Wang X (2021) The mitigating role of blockchain-enabled supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic. Int J Oper Prod Manag 41(9):1495–1521

Yang S, Ning L, Jiang T, He Y (2021) Dynamic impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on the regional express logistics: evidence from China. Transp Policy 111:111–124

Younis H, Sundarakani B, O’Mahony B (2020) Investigating the relationship between green supply chain management and corporate performance using a mixed method approach: developing a roadmap for future research. IIMB Manag Rev 32(3):305–324

Younis H, Sundarakani B, Alsharairi M (2021) Applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning within supply chains: systematic review and future research directions. J Model Manag. https://doi.org/10.1108/JM2-12-2020-0322

Zhang S (2021) Using equity market reactions and network analysis to infer global supply chain interdependencies in the context of COVID-19. J Econ Bus 115:105974

Zhao D, Strotmann A (2015) Analysis and visualization of citation networks: synthesis lectures on information concepts. Retr Serv 7(1):1–207

Download references

Open Access funding enabled and organized by CAUL and its Member Institutions. There is no direct and indirect funding involved in this research to declare.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

German Jordanian University, Madaba, Jordan

Hassan Younis & Malek Alsharairi

South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, USA

Hammad Younes

University of Wollongong in Dubai, Dubai, UAE

Balan Sundarakani

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Balan Sundarakani .

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest.

There is no conflict of interest to declare about this manuscript.

Additional information

Publisher's note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Younis, H., Alsharairi, M., Younes, H. et al. The impact of COVID-19 on supply chains: systematic review and future research directions. Oper Res Int J 23 , 48 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12351-023-00790-w

Download citation

Received : 30 September 2022

Revised : 29 May 2023

Accepted : 15 June 2023

Published : 07 July 2023

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s12351-023-00790-w

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• supply chain management
• Pandemic impact on supply chain
• Supply chain resilience
• Supply chain recovery
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

MIT Technology Review

• Newsletters

Unlocking the value of supply chain data across industries

How global standards and unique identifiers are turning supply chain data into a game-changer

• MIT Technology Review Insights archive page

In partnership with GS1 US

The product shortages and supply-chain delays of the global covid-19 pandemic are still fresh memories. Consumers and industry are concerned that the next geopolitical climate event may have a similar impact. Against a backdrop of evolving regulations, these conditions mean manufacturers want to be prepared against short supplies, concerned customers, and weakened margins.

For supply chain professionals, achieving a “phygital” information flow—the blending of physical and digital data—is key to unlocking resilience and efficiency. As physical objects travel through supply chains, they generate a rich flow of data about the item and its journey—from its raw materials, its manufacturing conditions, even its expiration date—bringing new visibility and pinpointing bottlenecks.

This phygital information flow offers significant advantages, enhancing the ability to create rich customer experiences to satisfying environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) goals. In a 2022 EY global survey of executives, 70% of respondents agreed that a sustainable supply chain will increase their company’s revenue.

For disparate parties to exchange product information effectively, they require a common framework and universally understood language. Among supply chain players, data standards create a shared foundation. Standards help uniquely identify, accurately capture, and automatically share critical information about products, locations, and assets across trading communities.

The push for digital standards

Supply chain data’s power lies in consistency, accuracy, and seamless sharing to fuel analytics and generate insight about operations. Standards can help precisely describe the physical and digital objects that make up a supply chain, and track what happens to them from production to delivery. This increased visibility is under sharp focus: according to a 2022 survey of supply chain leaders by McKinsey and Company, more than 90% of respondents from nearly every sector invested in digital supply chain technologies during the previous year.

These standards rely on number and attribution systems—which can be encoded into data carriers and attached to products—to uniquely identify assets at every level. When data is captured, it provides digital access to information about products and their movement through the supply chain.

Numbering and attribution systems such as the Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) identify traded items and products; likewise, Serial Shipping Container Codes (SSCCs) identify logistic units. Global Location Numbers (GLNs) identify business data including an invoice address or a delivery location. Global Product Classification (GPC) codes are a global standard that use a hierarchical system to classify items by characteristics.

Data carriers include Universal Product Code (UPC) barcodes, one-dimensional (1D) barcodes familiar to consumers, commonly scanned at the point of sale in North America. Outside the U.S. and Canada, the European Article Number (EAN) barcode is used. These barcodes encode GTIN identifier data.

In recent years, more complex and robust data carriers have become common, including radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags and two-dimensional (2D) barcodes like QR codes (quick-response codes). These codes contain vastly more data than simple 1D barcodes.

These identification and data capture standards work alongside others for information sharing, including master data, business transaction data, physical event data, and communication standards for sharing information among applications and partners. Phygital information must meet a wide range of needs, including regulatory compliance, consumer and patient engagement protections, and supply chain and trading partner requirements, such as procurement, production, marketing, and ESG reporting.

Regulation is an important industry driver: chain of custody and authentication of products and trading partners are vital for safe, secure supply chains. “Governments and regulatory agencies have leveraged the pervasiveness of standards adoption to further global goals of food, product, and consumer safety,” says Siobhan O’Bara, senior vice president of community engagement for GS1 US, a member of GS1, a global not-for-profit supply chain standards organization.

New developments in standards across industries

Global standards and unique identifiers are not only driving today’s supply chain evolution, but they also allow for robust use cases across a wide variety of industries. Here are a few examples to consider.

Healthcare: Today’s healthcare organizations are under pressure to improve patient outcomes, prevent errors, and control costs. Identification systems can help by empowering patients with information that help them follow medical protocols.

“We know in healthcare that a critical part of our world is not only whether people have access to healthcare but whether they follow their clinical instructions,” says O’Bara.

O’Bara offers the example of a home nebulizer, a device used to deliver medicine to improve respiratory symptoms. By equipping a nebulizer with an RFID chip, she says, “a patient can keep track of whether they are following the prescribed treatment. For instance, if there’s a filter with that nebulizer, when it gets locked into the device, the chip sends a signal, and the nebulizer can display for the patient at the correct time that the filter has been consumed. This mechanism can also convey to healthcare practitioners whether the patient is following the protocol properly.” The result is not only a lower risk of patient miscommunication but improved patient care.

Retail: Data about an item’s origins can prevent business losses and enhance public safety. For example, a grocery store that has a product recall on spinach due to a bacterial outbreak must be able to trace the origin of batches, or must destroy its entire inventory. A unique identifier can improve the speed, accuracy, and traceability of recalls for public safety, precision, and cost effectiveness.

Consumer goods: A 2D barcode on a bottle of hand lotion can reveal a vast amount of data for consumers, including its origin, ingredients, organic certification, and packaging materials. For industry, unique identifications can tell warehouse workers where a product is located, inform distributors whether a product contains potentially dangerous ingredients, and warn retailers if a product has age restrictions. “Data delivers value in all directions of the supply chain,” says O’Bara. “Data standards are the only way to accurately and consistently—with confidence—obtain and rely on these data points to complete your business operations,” she says.

Manufacturing: Achieving ESG compliance hinges on an organization’s supply chain visibility, says O’Bara. “You always have to have data to support your ESG claims, and the only way to get that data is by tracking it through a consistent and calculated method, no matter where it’s consumed.” Standards provide access to structured sustainability information that can be measured to ensure compliance with ESG regulations, and shared with supply chain partners.

The next frontier

Standards empower organizations to identify, capture, and share information seamlessly, creating a common language that can support business processes. Savvy organizations are going a step further, providing customers with direct access to supply chain and other valuable data. According to 2023 research by Gartner, customers who are “enabled” with visibility into the supply chain are twice as likely to return; however, only 23% of supply chains currently enable customers this way.

O’Bara points to digital labeling as a perfect example of the supply chain future. Digital labels accessed through 2D barcodes by smart devices could provide consumers with information about hundreds of product attributes, such as nutrition, as well as facts that go beyond the label such as environmental, lifestyle, and sustainability factors. This future-forward approach to an increasingly phygital world could drive long-term consumer engagement, and open the door for increased business growth.

“Once you have unlocked value from unique identifiers, there are so many more ways that you can think creatively and cross-functionally about how unifying standards along a supply chain can enable commercial functions and consumer engagement with potential to drive substantial top- and bottom-line revenue,” says O’Bara.

Humans and technology

Building a more reliable supply chain.

Rapidly advancing technologies are building the modern supply chain, making transparent, collaborative, and data-driven systems a reality.

Backed by heritage, ready for the future

Building a data-driven health-care ecosystem.

Harnessing data to improve the equity, affordability, and quality of the health care system.

Let’s not make the same mistakes with AI that we made with social media

Social media’s unregulated evolution over the past decade holds a lot of lessons that apply directly to AI companies and technologies.

• Nathan E. Sanders archive page
• Bruce Schneier archive page

Stay connected

Get the latest updates from mit technology review.

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at [email protected] with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.

Areas of Research

• Students & Placements
• (517) 355-2241
• [email protected]

Students in the logistics doctoral program at Broad work closely with faculty from the onset of their program to ensure the best preparation for academic life – including working on supply chain management research projects that eventually lead to publications in top-tier academic journals. The program links the traditional areas of logistics research and development with faculty expertise in the areas of demand management and forecasting, logistics operations and modeling, logistics strategy and relationship management. Both empirical and analytical methods are examined in the program to provide students with the skill sets necessary to succeed in their chosen stream of research.

Publications

Below are selected publications by faculty who work in the logistics doctoral program.

Stanley E. Griffis

2016 Curt B. Moore, G. Tyge Payne, Chad W. Autry,  Stanley E. Griffis . (2016) “Project Complexity and Bonding Social Capital in Network Organizations.” Group & Organization Management . May, 1-35. 2015 Bell, John E. Autry, Chad W.,  Griffis, Stanley E.,  (2015) “Supply Chain Interdiction as a Competitive Weapon.” Transportation Journal . 54(1), 89-103. 2014 Griffis, Stanley E.,  Autry, Chad W., Thornton, LaDonna M., ben Brik, Anis (2014) “Assessing Antecedents of Socially Responsible Supplier Selection in Three Global Supply Chain Contexts.” Decision Sciences . 45(6), 1187-1215. Melnyk, Steven, Zobel, Christopher W., Macdonald, John,  Griffis, Stanley E.  (2014) “Making Sense of Transient Responses in Simulation Studies.” International Journal of Production Research . 52(3), 617-632, 2013 Whipple, Judith M., Griffis,  Stanley E.,  and Daugherty, Patricia J. (2013) “Conceptualizations of Trust: Can We Trust Them?”  Journal of Business Logistics . 34(2), 117-130 . Fleming, Christopher L.,  Griffis, Stanley E ., Bell, John E. (2013) “The Effects of Triangle Inequality on the Vehicle Routing Problem.”  European Journal of Operations Research . 224(1):1-7. 2012 Griffis, Stanley E ., Rao, Shashank, Goldsby, Thomas J., Voorhees, Clay M., Iyengar, Deepak, (2012) “Linking Order Fulfillment Performance to Referrals in Online Retailing: An Empirical Analysis.”  Journal of Business Logistics . 33(4), 278-292. Griffis, Stanley E ., Whipple, Judith, M., (2012) “A Comprehensive Risk Assessment and Evaluation Model: Proposing a Risk Priority Continuum.”  Transportation Journal . 51 (4), 428-451. Porterfield, Tobin E., Macdonald, John R.,  Griffis, Stanley E ., (2012) “An Exploration of the Relational Effects of Supply Chain Disruptions.”  Transportation Journal . 51 (4), 399-427. Griffis, Stanley E ., Bell, John E., Closs, David J., (2012) “Metaheuristics in Logistics and Supply Chain Management.”  Journal of Business Logistics.  33(2), 90-105. Griffis, Stanley E ., Rao, Shashank, Goldsby, Thomas J., Niranjan, Tarikere T., (2012) “The Customer Consequences of Returns in Online Retailing: An Empirical Analysis.”  Journal of Operations Management . 30 (4), 282-294. 2011 Rao, Shashank, Griffis, Stanley E., Goldsby, Thomas J. (2011) “Failure to Deliver?  Linking Online Order Fulfillment Glitches with Future Purchase Behavior.”  Journal of Operations Management . 29 (7-8), pp 693-703. Rao, Shashank, Goldsby, Thomas J., Griffis, Stanley E., Iyengar, Deepak (2011) “Electronic Logistics Service Quality (e-LSQ):  Its Impact on the Customer’s Purchase Satisfaction and Retention.”  Journal of Business Logistics . 32 (2), pp. 167-179. Payne, G. Tyge, Moore, Curt B.,  Griffis, Stanley E ., Autry, Chad W. (2011) “Multilevel Challenges and Opportunities in Social Capital Research.”  Journal of Management . 37 (2), 491-520. Wilcox, William, Horvath, Philip A.,  Griffis, Stanley E. , Autry, Chad W. (2011) “A Markov Model of Liquidity Effects in Reverse Logistics Processes: The Effects of Random Volume and Passage.”  International Journal of Production Economics . 129 (1), 86-101. Bell, John E.,  Griffis, Stanley E . Cunningham, William J., Eberlan, Jon (2011) “Location Optimization of Strategic Alert Sites for Homeland Defense.”  Omega, The International Journal of Management Science.  39 (2), 151-158. 2010 Bell, John E and  Stanley E. Griffis  (2010), “Swarm Intelligence: Application of the Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm to Logistics-Oriented Vehicle Routing Problems.”  Journal of Business Logistics.  31 (2), 157-175. 2008 Autry, Chad W.,  Stanley E. Griffis  (2008), “Supply Chain Capital: The Impact of Structural and Relational Linkages on Firm Execution and Innovation.”  Journal of Business Logistics.  29 (1), 157-173. 2007 Griffis, Stanley E ., Thomas J. Goldsby, Martha C. Cooper, and David J. Closs (2007), “Aligning Logistics Performance Measures to the Information Needs of the Firm.”  Journal of Business Logistics.  28 (2), 35-56. 2006 Goldsby, Thomas J.,  Stanley E. Griffis  and Anthony S. Roath (2006), “Modeling Lean, Agile, and Leagile Supply Chain Strategies.”  Journal of Business Logistics.  27 (1), 57-80.  Winner – The Bernard J. LaLonde Award for Best Paper in JBL 2006. 2005 Autry, Chad W., and  Stanley E. Griffis  (2005), “A Social Anthropology of Logistics Research: Exploring Productivity and Collaboration in an Emerging Science.”  Transportation Journal.  44 (4), 27-43. Autry, Chad W.,  Stanley E. Griffis , Thomas J. Goldsby, L. Michelle Bobbitt (2005), “Warehouse Management Systems: An Initial Assessment, Empirical Analysis and Research Agenda.”  Journal of Business Logistics.  26 (2), 165-183. 2004 Griffis, Stanley , Martha C. Cooper, Thomas J. Goldsby and David J. Closs (2004), “Performance Measurement: Measure Selection Based Upon Firm Goals and Information Reporting Needs.”  Journal of Business Logistics.  25 (2), 95-118. 2003 Griffis, Stanley E ., Thomas J. Goldsby, and Martha C. Cooper (2003), “Web-Based and Mail Surveys: A Comparison of Response, Data and Cost.”  Journal of Business Logistics.  24 (2), 237-258.

Stanley Lim

2022 Lim, S.F.W.T., Richards, T.J., Rabinovich, E. and Choi, M. 2022. Scan based trading and bargaining equilibrium: A structural estimation of supply chain profit. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, forthcoming. 2021 Lim, S.F.W.T., Gao, F. and Tan, T.F. 2021. Slow and steady, or fast and furious? An empirical study about omnichannel demand sensitivity to fulfillment lead time. Management Science (Major revision). Lim, S.F.W.T., Rabinovich, E., Lee, S. and Park, S. 2021. Estimating stockout costs and optimal stockout rates to improve the management of ugly produce inventory. Management Science (Major revision). Lim, S.F.W.T., Rabinovich, E., Park, S. and Hwang, M. 2021. Shopping activity at warehouse club stores and its competitive and network density implications. Production and Operations Management, 30(1): 28-46. 2019 Lim, S.F.W.T. and Winkenbach, M. 2019. Configuring the last-mile in business-to-consumer e-retailing. California Management Review, 61(2): 132-154.

Jason W. Miller

2017 Miller, J. W . 2017. “Discrete Time Hazard Modeling of Large Motor Carriers’ Longitudinal CSA Performance.” Transportation Journal . Forthcoming. Miller, J. W . 2017. “A Multivariate Time Series Analysis of Motor Carrier Safety Behaviors.”  Journal of Business Logistics. Miller, J. W.  & Saldanha, J. P. 2017. “Do New Entrants Become Safer over Time?”  Transportation Journal. Miller, J. W ., Saldanha, J. P., Rungtusanatham, M., & Knemeyer, A. M. 2017. “How Does Driver Turnover Affect Motor Carrier Safety Performance and What Can Managers Do About It?”  Journal of Business Logistics. Miller, J. W ., Golicic, S., & Fugate, B. 2017. “Developing and Testing a Dynamic Theory of Motor Carrier Safety?”  Journal of Business Logistics.  In Press. Davis-Sramek, B., Fugate, B. S,  Miller, J. W , Germain, R., Izyumov, A., & Krotov, K. 2017. “Understanding the Present by Examining the Past: Imprinting Effects on Supply Chain Outsourcing in a Transition Economy.”  Journal of Supply Chain Management.  53(1): 65–86. 2016 Miller, J. W ., Fugate, B., & Golicic, S. 2016. “How Organizations Respond to Information Disclosure: Testing Alternative Longitudinal Performance Trajectories.” Academy of Management Journal . In Press. Miller, J. W ., & Saldanha, J. P. 2016. “A New Look at the Relationship between Financial Performance and Safety: A Longitudinal Growth Perspective.” Journal of Business Logistics 37(3): 284–306. Schwieterman, M. A.,  Miller, J. W . 2016. “Factor Market Rivalry: Towards an Integrated Understanding of Firm Action.” Transportation Journal . 55(2): 97–123. 2015 Mellat-Parast, M., Golmohammadi, D., McFadden, K.,  Miller, J. W . 2015. “Linking Business Strategy to Service Failures and Financial Performance: Empirical Evidence from the U.S. Domestic Airline Industry.” Journal of Operations Management . 38(1): 14–24. Stromeyer, W. R.,  Miller, J. W ., Murthy, R., & DeMartino, R. 2015. “The Prowess and Pitfalls of Bayesian Structural Equation Modeling: Important Considerations for Management Research.” Journal of Management . 41(2): 491–520. 2014 Rungtusanatham, M.,  Miller, J. W ., & Boyer, K. K. 2014. “Theorizing, Testing and Concluding for Mediation in SCM Research: What to Do, What Not to Do.”  Journal of Operations Management.  32(3): 99–113. Saldanha, J. P.,  Miller, J. W ., Hunt, C. S. & Mello, J. E. 2014. “Linking Formal Controls to Motor Carrier Performance: Curvilinear and Interaction Effects.”  Transportation Research Part E . 64(1): 28–47. Fawcett, S. E., Waller, M. A.,  Miller, J. W ., Schwieterman, M. A., Hazen, B. T., & Overstreet, R. E. 2014. “Editorial: A Trail Guide to Publishing Success: Tips on Writing Influential Conceptual, Qualitative and Survey Research.”  Journal of Business Logistics . 35(1): 1–16. 2013 Miller, J. W ., Saldanha, J. P., Hunt, S., & Mello, J. E. 2013. “Combining Formal Controls to Improve Firm Performance.”  Journal of Business Logistics . 34(4): 301–318.. Miller, J. W ., Stromeyer, W. R., & Schwieterman, M. A. 2013. “Extensions of the Johnson-Neyman Technique to Linear Models with Curvilinear Effects: Derivations and Analytical Tools.”  Multivariate Behavioral Research . 48(2): 267-300. Goldsby, T. J., Knemeyer, A. M.,  Miller, J. W ., & Wallenburg, C. M. 2013. “Measurement and Moderation: Finding the Boundary Conditions in Logistics and Supply Chain Research.” Journal of Business Logistics . 34(2): 109–116.

Judith M. Whipple

2016 Roh, Joseph, Virpi Turkulainen,  Judith M. Whipple , and Morgan Swink (forthcoming), “Understanding the Organizational Change Process for Supply Chain Management Organizations.”  International Journal of Logistics Management. 2015 Whipple, Judith M ., Robert Wiedmer, and Kenneth K. Boyer (2015), “A Dyadic Investigation of Collaborative Competence, Social Capital and Performance in Buyer-Supplier Relationships.”  Journal of Supply Chain Management.  51(2): 3-21 . 2013 Whipple, Judith M ., Stanley Griffis, and Patricia J. Daugherty (2013), “Conceptualizations of Trust: Can We Trust Them?”  Journal of Business Logistics.  34:2, 117-130. Roh, Joseph, Judith M. Whipple , Kenneth K. Boyer (2013), “The Effect of Single Rater Bias in Multi-Stakeholder Research: A Methodological Evaluation of Buyer-Supplier Relationships.”  Production and Operations Management Journal.  22:3, 711-725 . 2012 Griffis, Stanley and  Judith M. Whipple  (2012), “A Comprehensive Risk Assessment and Evaluation Model: Proposing a Risk Priority Continuum.”  Transportation Journal.  51:4, 428-451 . 2011 Nyaga, Gilbert and  Judith M. Whipple  (2011), “Relationship Quality and Performance Outcomes: Achieving a Competitive Advantage.”  Journal of Business Logistics.  32:4, 345-360. Speier, Cheri,  Judith M. Whipple , David J. Closs and M. Douglas Voss (2011), “Global Supply Chain Design Considerations: Mitigating Product Safety and Security Risks.”  Journal of Operations Management.  29:7-8, 721-736.  Winner, JOM Jack Meredith Best Paper of the Year Award and Stan Hardy Award. Allaway, Arthur W., Patricia Huddleston,  Judith M. Whipple , and Alexander E. Ellinger (2011), “Customer-Based Brand Equity, Equity Drivers and Customer Loyalty in the Supermarket Industry.”  The Journal of Product and Brand Management.  20:3, 190-204. 2010 Whipple, Judith M.  and Joseph Roh (2010), “Quality Fade and Agency Theory in Buyer-Supplier Relationships.”  The International Journal of Logistics Management.  21:3, 338-352. Richey, R. Glenn, Anthony S. Roath,  Judith M. Whipple , and Stanley E. Fawcett (2010), “Exploring a Governance Theory of Supply Chain Management: Barriers and Facilitators to Integration.”  Journal of Business Logistics.  31:1, 237-256 .  Bernard J. La Londe Best Paper Award in the Journal – 2010. Nyaga, Gilbert N., Judith M. Whipple , and Daniel F. Lynch (2010), “Examining Supply Chain Relationships: Do Buyer and Supplier Perspectives on Collaborative Relationships Differ?”  Journal of Operations Management.  28:2, 101-114.   Finalist, JOM Jack Meredith Best Paper of the Year Award based on 5-year impact. Whipple, Judith M.,  Daniel F. Lynch, and Gilbert N. Nyaga (2010), “A Buyer’s Perspective on Collaborative Versus Transactional Relationships.”  Industrial Marketing Management.  39:3, 507-518 . 2009 Voss, M. Douglas, Judith M. Whipple , and David J. Closs (2009), “The Role of Strategic Security: Internal and External Security Measures with Security Performance Implications.”  Transportation Journal.  48:2, 5-23 . Whipple, Judith M., M. Douglas Voss, and David J. Closs (2009), “Supply Chain Security Practices in the Food Industry: Do Firms Operating Domestically and Globally Differ?”  International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics Management.  39:7, 574-594. Huddleston, Patricia,  Judith M. Whipple , Rachel Nye Mattick, and So Jung Lee (2009), “Customer Satisfaction in Food Retailing: Comparing Specialty and Conventional Grocery Stores.”  International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management.  37:1, 63-80. 2007 Jones, Kraig, Kellie Curry Raper,  Judith M. Whipple , Diane Mollenkopf, and H. Christopher Peterson (2007), “Commodity-Procurement Strategies of Food Companies: A Case Study.”  Journal of Food Distribution Research.  XXXVIII:3, 37-53 . Whipple, Judith M.  and Dawn Russell (2007) “Building Supply Chain Collaboration: A Typology of Collaborative Relationship Strategies.”  The International Journal of Logistics Management.  18:2, 174-196. 2004 Sabath, Robert and  Judith M. Whipple  (2004), “Using the Customer/Product Action Matrix.”  Journal of Business Logistics.  25:2, 1-19.   Bernard J. La Londe Best Paper Award in the Journal – 2005. Huddleston, Patricia,  Judith Whipple , and Amy VanAuken (2004), “Food Store Loyalty: Application of a Consumer Loyalty Framework.”  Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for Marketing.  12:3, 213-230. 2002 Whipple, Judith M ., Robert Frankel, and Patricia J. Daugherty (2002), “Information Support for Alliances: Performance Implications.”  Journal of Business Logistics.  23:2, 67-82. Frankel, Robert, Thomas J. Goldsby, and  Judith M. Whipple  (2002), “Grocery Industry Collaboration in the Wake of ECR.”  International Journal of Logistics Management.  13:1, 57-72.  Accenture Award for Best Paper in the Journal – 2002. Anselmi, Kenneth, Robert Frankel, and  Judith Schmitz Whipple  (2002), “Performance in Product Versus Service Supplier Relationships.”  Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing.  9:1, 27-43. 2000 Whipple, Judith M.  and Robert Frankel (2000), “Strategic Alliance Success Factors: Do Both Parties Agree?”  The Journal of Supply Chain Management.  36:3 (Summer), 21-28 . Whipple, Judith Schmitz  and Julie J. Gentry (2000), “A Network Comparison of Alliance Motives and Achievements.”  Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing.  15:4/5, 301-322.

Supply Chain @ Broad

Get connected with broad:.

• Business College Complex
• 632 Bogue St
• East Lansing, MI 48824

• History of the SCRC
• SCRC Events
• Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
• Industry Engagement
• Current Partners
• Partner Successes
• Practicum Experience
• Client Project Showcase
• Student Engagement
• Undergraduate Opportunities
• Graduate Research Assistantship
• Graduate Opportunities
• Student Profiles
• Alumni Profiles
• Thought Leaders
• Executive Advisors
• SCM Resources
• SCRC Director’s Blog
• SCM Article Library
• Coronavirus and Supply Chain Management
• Ethical Apparel Index
• Poole Thought Leadership

The Origins and Growth of Supply Chain Management – and the Need for a Common Lexicon

The term “supply chain management” quickly exploded into the public lexicon during COVID, at which time people would often heard saying “blame it on the supply chain”! For the first time in my 35 year career, I was also inundated with calls from the media wanting to know what was going on with our supply chains. Indeed, supply chains were effectively shut down during COVID, and I was closely involved with several federal efforts to obtain critical materials like PPE, drugs, and other initiatives . Over time, the term has grown to the point where most business schools have a Department of Supply Chain Management, academics have expanded the topic to include a variety of specialized areas within the field of supply chain management, including human resources in SCM, urban logistics, transparency in software, human behavior, supply chain nethics, supply chain finance, supply chain analytics, and a host of other issues shown in Table 1. Indeed, the field has also exploded into an entire software industry devoted to a number of various areas, including Manufacturing Planning and Control, OPM, warehouse management systems, transportation management systems, retail assortment planning, and a variety of other areas that are now evaluated annually by Gartner . There is even a “Top Supply Chain Organizations” (which will be revealed for 2024 on May 22) and “Top Supply Chain Universities” competition every year, in which marketing groups scramble to get on the list.

Table 1 – Mapping the Landscape of Supply Chain Management (Handfield, Wieland, and Durach, 2016)

Where did the term supply chain management originate? And how has it become so popular?

The origins of the term was documented in an article by Tim Laseter and Keith Oliver, two consultants from Booz Allen, in 2003. Mr. Oliver claims that the term was born in a discussion with clients in the late 1970s:

Mr. Oliver was formulating his ideas through work with a number of clients, including SKF, Heineken, Hoechst, Cadbury-Schweppes, and Philips. Many of the ideas jelled during an engagement with Philips, the Dutch consumer electronics manufacturer. He began to develop a vision for tearing down the functional silos that separated production, marketing, distribution, sales, and finance to generate a step-function reduction in inventory and a simultaneous improvement in customer service. Looking for a catchy phrase to describe the concept, the consulting team proposed the term integrated inventory management. In a sure sign that consultants should not be allowed near promotional issues, the group expressed confidence that the world would adopt the sophisticated-looking abbreviation I2M .

Later, at a key steering committee meeting, the team shared the vision and introduced the new term and accompanying abbreviation. Eyes glazed over as the phrase failed to resonate with participants. One manager, a Mr. Van t’Hoff, challenged Mr. Oliver to explain what he meant by “I2M.”

“We’re talking about the management of a chain of supply as though it were a single entity,” Mr. Oliver replied, “not a group of disparate functions.”

“ Then why don’t you call it that?” Mr. Van t’Hoff said.

“ Call it what?” Mr. Oliver asked.

“ Total supply chain management. ”

The term was formally introduced to the public in an interview with Mr. Oliver published in a 1982  Financial Times . The term supply chain management (SCM) could have easily disappeared into the history of business jargon. IInstead, SCM rapidly passed into the public domain — a sure indication the concept holds meaning for executives wrestling with the endless challenges of procurement, logistics, operations, sales, and marketing activities that fall within its realm.

However, the term became widely adopted after the publication of the seminal book  Introduction to Supply Chain Management  i n 1998 which I wrote with my colleague Ernie Nichols , during the time I was at Michigan State. This was a thin paperback that sought to simplify the concepts of supply chain management into a practical framework, and was conceived as the two of us began a conversation around the lack of a common definition for supply chain management. (The book became a best seller, selling more than 25,000 copies and was translated into Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Russian. It has been cited in almost 5000 different academic journal articles. Who would have thought?)

• In this book, we proposed that the field of supply chain management is based on three simple ideas.  First, every organization must make a product or provide a service that someone values .  Otherwise, why would the organization exist?  Think about it.  Manufacturers produce goods that are used directly by consumers or as inputs by other manufacturers.  Transportation companies like Schneider provide valuable services by moving and storing these goods.  Design firms such use their expertise to design products and create corporate images for customers.  The need to provide a valuable product or service holds true for non-profit organizations as well.  Consider the variety of needs met by government agencies, charities and religious groups, for example.
• The common thread is that each of the above organizations has an operations function, or operations for short.  S imply put, operations is the collection of people, technology, and systems within a company that has primary responsibility for providing the organization’s products or services.  Regardless of what career path a student might choose, you will need to know something about your company’s operations.
• As important as the operations area is to a firm, few organizations can – or even want to – do everything themselves.  This leads to our third point : Most organizations function as part of  larger supply chains .  Supply chains encompass all activities associated with the flow of goods from the raw materials stage (extraction), through to the end user, as well as the associated information flows.  Supply chains link the operations of many firms together.

I first introduced the concept of supply chains to a group of executives at Michigan State in 1998. I proposed the idea that multiple organizations would be connected together through integrated software systems, and would be able to look at inventory as if through a glass pipeline, being able to see where products were, if they were constrained, and where the bottlenecks were occurring. These executives stared at me as if I had been smoking something…they could never imagine that one day this vision would become a reality.

Although there has been an incredible amount of research in the field and massive advances in supply chain software solutions, there still remains many unsolved problems, and many areas for on-going discovery into research in the field. For instance, there are now different levels of maturity of supply chain performance, that document the progress that organizations are making towards a fully integrated supply chain. ..

The Need for a Standard Supply Chain Lexicon

One of the biggest challenges facing the field is the lack of a standardized lexicon that serves as the foundation for effective global trade communications across industries in different supply chains.

The ASTM F49 International Committee on Digital Information in the Supply Chain is focused on providing the data standards necessary for next generation efficiencies in the global supply chain process covering all major modes of transport: Ocean Full Container, Ocean Less-Than-Container, Short-Sea, Road, Rail and Air. Supply Chains face poor performance of logistics resulting from massive problems and disruptions caused by the current inadequate communication processes. F49 will deliver standardized common language, common processes, and information exchanges that will remove roadblocks to better performance of logistics and Supply Chains. 

I am working on a F49 committee founded by the American Society for Testing and Materials, which is working on this very problem. Our early work reveals that there is indeed almost no match in terms between the major non-profit supply chain organizations, including ASCM, CSCMP, GS1 and others. We need supply chain experts to volunteer and help this effort! You will learn a lot, and get to interact with others in moving the field of supply chain management forward!

• Director's Blog
• Facts & Figures
• FLOW: How the Best Supply Chains Thrive
• Information Flows
• LIVING Supply Chain
• Physical Flows
• Relationships
• SCM Features
• SCM Supply Chain Management Definitions & Terms

• Frontiers in Energy Research
• Energy Efficiency
• Research Topics

Application of Smart Technologies in Optimizing Energy Across Supply Chains

Total Downloads

Total Views and Downloads

About this Research Topic

Supply chains are profoundly energy-intensive, consuming over half of global energy and emitting nearly a third of greenhouse gases. Yet legacy supply chains lack visibility and intelligence to curb this immense footprint. The rise of smart connectivity and advanced analytics promises a new paradigm for major energy savings across nodes of manufacturing, transportation, storage, and distribution. The Internet of Things (IoT) allows supply chain operations to be instrumented with intelligent sensors and systems that generate granular, real-time data. This data fuels optimization, prediction, automation, and transformation of sprawling, fragmented supply networks into integrated, efficient ecosystems. The benefits of IoT adoption for supply chain energy optimization spans multiple dimensions. Intelligent manufacturing powered by industrial IoT and predictive analytics minimizes waste through data-driven insights into forecasting, scheduling, quality control, and preventive maintenance. Fleet telematics track vehicle locations, status, and performance metrics to optimize delivery routes, leading to reduced mileage. Smart packaging with embedded sensors monitors product condition during transit, enabling dynamic adjustments to transportation modes and inventory management for perishable goods. Smart warehouses employ energy management systems that dynamically optimize lighting, HVAC systems, and material handling energy costs based on real-time operating conditions. Across nodes, blockchain and distributed ledgers offer supply chain-wide transparency to verify collective energy savings in near real-time. Advanced machine learning algorithms extract previously hidden insights from vast streams of multimodal IoT data for system-wide efficiency gains. This Research Topic provides a critical forum for leading research at the nexus of IoT technologies, energy systems, and supply chain management. The introductory article will provide background on the massive yet hidden energy intensity of traditional supply chains. It will examine the environmental pressures on industries to dramatically reduce their carbon footprint across transportation, warehousing, manufacturing, inventory management, and last-mile distribution – nodes contributing to the lion’s share of global energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Technical, economic, and policy analyses will explore the challenges and opportunities of transitioning to smarter, greener supply chains powered by the IoT revolution. Manuscript submissions are encouraged from a broad range of related topics, which may include but are not limited to the following activities: • Frameworks for implementing IoT solutions for energy efficiency in supply chains • Intelligent manufacturing powered by Industrial IoT • Supply chain optimization aimed at minimize energy waste • Fleet telematics, asset tracking, and optimized routing for reducing fuel consumption • Smart warehouses management • Blockchain for trusted energy optimization across supply chains • Predictive maintenance and asset management for maximizing energy efficiency • Renewable energy integration and optimization in manufacturing and warehousing facilities • Case studies and pilot projects demonstrating the benefits of IoT for energy efficiency in supply chains

Keywords : Smart Technology, Supply Chain, Internet of Things, Blockchain, Energy Efficiency, Meta-heuristic Algorithm

Important Note : All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

Topic Editors

Topic coordinators, submission deadlines, participating journals.

Manuscripts can be submitted to this Research Topic via the following journals:

total views

• Demographics

No records found

total views article views downloads topic views

Top countries

Top referring sites, about frontiers research topics.

With their unique mixes of varied contributions from Original Research to Review Articles, Research Topics unify the most influential researchers, the latest key findings and historical advances in a hot research area! Find out more on how to host your own Frontiers Research Topic or contribute to one as an author.

Suggestions or feedback?

MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Machine learning
• Social justice
• Black holes
• Classes and programs

Departments

• Aeronautics and Astronautics
• Brain and Cognitive Sciences
• Architecture
• Political Science
• Mechanical Engineering

Centers, Labs, & Programs

• Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL)
• Picower Institute for Learning and Memory
• Lincoln Laboratory
• School of Architecture + Planning
• School of Engineering
• School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
• Sloan School of Management
• School of Science
• MIT Schwarzman College of Computing

MIT Supply Chain Management Program earns top honors in three 2024 rankings

Previous image Next image

MIT's Supply Chain Management (SCM) Master's Program, housed within the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics (CTL) at the Institute's School of Engineering, has been named top master's program for supply chain management for 2024 by three leading global rankings institutions: QS World University Rankings, Eduniversal, and Supply Chain Digital .

QS World University Rankings, recognized for its thorough evaluation of over 1,500 institutions across 104 locations worldwide, has singled out MIT SCM as the premier program in the field. QS considers five main facets in determining rankings: employability of degree recipients; alumni CEO and executive outcomes; tuition, alumni salaries, and return on investment; thought leadership and research impact; and class and faculty diversity. With an emphasis on career sustainability and growth, QS's acknowledgment reflects MIT's commitment to preparing students for success in today's dynamic business landscape.

Eduniversal, known for its exhaustive review of over 5,800 master's and MBA programs across 50-plus fields of study spanning more than 150 countries, also bestowed the No. 1 ranking upon MIT's SCM program. Eduniversal's assessment takes into consideration the MIT Global SCALE Network of six innovation centers (MIT CTL, Ningbo China Institute for Supply Chain Innovation, Zaragoza Logistics Center, Center for Latin-American Logistics Innovation, the Malaysia Institute for Supply Chain Innovation, and Luxembourg Center for Logistics and Supply Chain Management), underscoring MIT's global impact and leadership in real-world applications in supply chain education.

Supply Chain Digital , a leading industry publication with an audience of global logistics executives, recently honored MIT CTL as the provider of the No. 1 supply chain program globally. This recognition highlights MIT’s influence in shaping the future of supply chain from the perspective of company leadership and management.

In addition to its master’s program, MIT CTL offers an online MicroMasters program, which registered its one-millionth learner in late 2022. After finishing the online program, certificate holders can apply to MIT (and other universities) and obtain a full master’s degree in a single semester.

“Our program prides itself on its interdisciplinary curriculum and close collaboration with industry leaders,” says Maria Jesús Saénz, executive director of the MIT SCM Masters Programs, “so that our graduates can emerge equipped with the skills, knowledge, and mindset needed to tackle the complex and dynamic challenges facing modern supply chains. We are as committed as ever to fostering excellence and driving positive, real-world challenges.”

MIT CTL has been a world leader in supply chain management education and research for more than five decades. The center has made significant contributions to supply chain and logistics and has helped numerous companies gain competitive advantage from its cutting-edge research.

“We are thrilled by the recognition of the SCM program by these esteemed organizations,” says Professor Yossi Sheffi, director of the MIT CTL. “This achievement reflects the dedication of our faculty, staff, and students in serving as a world leader in supply chain management education and research by driving supply chain innovation into practice.”

Share this news article on:

Related links.

• MIT Supply Chain Management Program
• MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics
• MITx MicroMasters Programs
• MIT Global SCALE Network
• Eduniversal Best Masters Rankings
• QS World University Business Masters Rankings
• Supply Chain Digital Top 10

Related Topics

• Supply chains
• Transportation
• Graduate, postdoctoral
• Center for Transportation and Logistics

Related Articles

Erin Bahm, Steven Parks named 2024–25 UPS Fellows

Opening pathways for future supply chain leaders

MITx MicroMasters Program in Supply Chain Management reaches 1 million enrollments

Previous item Next item

More MIT News

The power of App Inventor: Democratizing possibilities for mobile applications

Read full story →

Using MRI, engineers have found a way to detect light deep in the brain

From steel engineering to ovarian tumor research

A better way to control shape-shifting soft robots

Professor Emeritus David Lanning, nuclear engineer and key contributor to the MIT Reactor, dies at 96

Discovering community and cultural connections

• More news on MIT News homepage →

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA, USA

• Map (opens in new window)
• Events (opens in new window)
• People (opens in new window)
• Careers (opens in new window)
• Accessibility
• Social Media Hub
• MIT on Facebook
• MIT on YouTube
• MIT on Instagram

Supply Chain Mapping, Not Climate Prediction, is Key to Mitigating Risk for Corporate Boards

Agenda, the Financial Times-produced source for U.S. corporate board analysis, recently tapped a University of Maryland-based research team for insight into how company boards can effectively deal with continuous extreme weather across the globe.

El Niño in 2024, for example, has led to heavy snowstorms disrupting the Northeast, record-breaking rainfall in California and drought southward slowing shipments via the Panama Canal by more than 30 percent. Meanwhile, 48 percent of directors polled by PwC said their boards have not created a formal crisis management escalation policy, and more than 20 percent said the supply chain poses significant oversight challenges to their boards.

While its scale and frequency are new, extreme weather isn’t unprecedented — like hurricane season in the same region year after year, said Bindiya Vakil, CEO of supply chain mapping company Resilinc and part of a UMD research effort that produced a “ Playbook for a Climate-Ready Supply Chain ” as part of findings published by Harvard Business Review.

Her co-researchers included Professor Emeritus Sandor Boyson for the Robert H. Smith School of Business, Smith PhD graduate Laharish Guntuka (now with Rochester Institute of Technology’s Saunders School of Business) and UMD College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences/ESSIC Associate Research Professor Michael Gerst .

Vakil told Agenda that companies can account for such anticipated weather via planning backups to suppliers or stocking up on inventory. “But a lot of companies don’t do that, because they haven’t really bothered to map their supply chain,” she said. “And if you don’t map your supply chain, you don’t actually know which of your factories are in a hurricane region.”

Guntuka said that most companies don’t map their chains down to their second supplier. “God knows what’s happening in the third and fourth tier of suppliers.”

Vakil said she estimates fewer than 500 companies worldwide map their supplies all the way to raw materials.

Boyson told Agenda that boards looking to understand how climate will affect their supply chain should understand where their main “hubs” are. These hubs are critical, as many different suppliers go through them or because they provide a component that’s particularly difficult to source elsewhere.

“Once you identify [the hubs], investigate their capabilities,” he said. “How are they dealing with risk mapping and continuity planning on that site? Are they even looking at climate risk?”

Contingency planning for extreme weather events should include factors like alternative energy backups and temporary and medical plans for locally impacted workers, Boyson also told Agenda.

Gerst addressed the usage of sophisticated analytics tools — that they can be effectively deployed to assess climate risk. However, he added, subsequent heavy emphasis on data technology can overshadow insight already there — from suppliers already experiencing and learning to mitigate climate extremes.

“A lot can be gained by understanding and learning from current risk conditions,” Gerst told Agenda. “Really, the first thing that’ll get you a long way is just understanding what your current status is. You don’t even need a prediction.”

The originating article, “ Boards Don’t Need to Predict the Climate to Ease Supply Risks ,” is at Agenda.

• Sandor Boyson
• Maryland Smith Research
• Business Masters
• Master of Science in Supply Chain Management
• Supply Chain Management Center
• Logistics, Business and Public Policy

Media Contact

Greg Muraski Media Relations Manager 301-405-5283   301-892-0973 Mobile [email protected]  

Get Smith Brain Trust Delivered To Your Inbox Every Week

Business moves fast in the 21st century. Stay one step ahead with bite-sized business insights from the Smith School's world-class faculty.

Subscribe Now

Read More Research

• Join the AMA
• Find learning by topic
• Free learning resources for members
• Certification
• Training for teams
• Why learn with the AMA?
• Marketing News
• Academic Journals
• Guides & eBooks
• Marketing Job Board
• Academic Job Board
• AMA Foundation
• Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
• Collegiate Resources
• Awards and Scholarships
• Sponsorship Opportunities
• Strategic Partnerships

We noticed that you are using Internet Explorer 11 or older that is not support any longer. Please consider using an alternative such as Microsoft Edge, Chrome, or Firefox.

Call for Papers | Journal of International Marketing: Marketing’s Role in the Management of Fast-Evolving Global Supply Chains

Globalization and digitalization have reshaped global supply chain operations (Alicke et al. 2023). In particular, geopolitical disruptions such as the China–U.S. trade war, Brexit, and Middle East tensions have triggered the reconfiguration of global supply chains for many global companies (Bednarski et al. 2023; Henrich et al. 2022). The Russia–Ukraine war has further accelerated the decoupling between the U.S. and China as well as between the West and Russia. In this rapidly changing and uncertain environment, Apple, for example, has considered reshoring some of its manufacturing back to the United States. Other global companies are also considering a “China + 1” or “China + 2” strategy for their contract manufacturing operations. Such strategies allow international marketing managers to keep some of their manufacturing in China while establishing new production locations, often with the same suppliers, in countries such as Vietnam, India, or Mexico, where political risks and labor costs are more manageable (Vertinsky et al. 2023). Other external shocks and natural disasters such as the COVID-19 pandemic and earthquakes have disrupted firms’ supply chain operations around the world (Panwar, Pinkse, and De Marchi 2022). For example, demand for in-person restaurant dining has decreased, whereas demand for food delivery and home-based consumption has greatly increased (Jeong et al. 2023), forcing multinationals like KFC and McDonalds to modify their operations in host markets. Under such market changes, firms need to explore new ways of organizing their global supply chains with respect to factors like product diversity and cooperation with more partners in the supply chains and ecosystems around the world (Davis et al. 2023; Henrich et al. 2022). These challenges highlight the critical need for international marketing managers to improve planning and forecasting for their global supply chains to be more agile and resilient.

Furthermore, shareholders and stakeholders have been demanding greater accountability from companies, pressing international marketing managers to take responsibility for the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) impacts of their global supply chain and manufacturing activities and to ensure that they’re doing business in an ethical, sustainable, and fair fashion (Henrich et al. 2022). While marketing’s approach to this new expectation varies by country, the market now expects the same standards to be enforced throughout a company’s global supply chain. Accordingly, the stakeholders of global brands, who often hold strong expectations regarding appropriate ESG-related behaviors, have begun scrutinizing not only the firms selling the branded products worldwide but also their entire global supply chains (Mateska et al. 2023).

In the meantime, the emergence of advanced technologies such as AI and Industry 4.0 bring about great opportunities for international marketing managers to coordinate and configure their global supply chains automatically (Alicke et al. 2023; Ejaz and Hegedűs 2023; Lee et al. 2023). For example, Unilever uses an AI application and service to find alternative supply sources on short notice. Koch Industries, one of the largest privately held conglomerates in the U.S., is leveraging an AI tool to optimize its supplier base. Industry 4.0 can also help international marketing managers enhance their resilience to cope with global supply chain disruptions (Tan 2023). Further, cloud computing and blockchain technologies also help integrate a firm’s supply chain partners; enhance the transparency, efficiency, and timeliness of global supply chain activities; and enable international marketing managers to cope with communication barriers in the market. However, there is a potential downside: When there are unanticipated natural disasters or geopolitical tensions (Henrich et al. 2022), minimizing potential interruptions in such optimized, digitalized, and complex global supply networks may pose major challenges. Thus, managing global supply chains in the era of digitalization emerges as a critical and challenging task for international marketing managers.

Despite these emerging challenges and opportunities for international marketing managers, academic research on these areas is limited. Most academic work on supply chain management has focused on domestic context and overlooks how different formal and informal institutions would shape firms’ global supply chain strategies (Usui, Kotabe, and Murray 2017). Specifically, little research attention has been paid to how global supply chains can be managed to improve the flow of supplies from the perspective of international marketing, how firms can cope with emerging managerial challenges, or how international marketing managers can take advantage of new opportunities in their global supply chains. To fill this gap, there is an urgent need to develop new theories, modify existing theories, and determine how firms can manage their global supply chains in the face of emerging trends of globalization and digitalization.  

Suggested Topics for Submissions

We encourage research on any aspect of global supply chain management from the perspective of international marketing at all levels of analysis, such as the individual employee or entrepreneur, firms, supply chains, platforms as well as ecosystems. Different types of firms (e.g., multinationals, regionals, local importers/exporters, suppliers, key account customers, born-globals, virtual vs. physical firms) and different institutional (e.g., formal, informal, government, trading blocs) and regional settings are encouraged. We call for more interdisciplinary and foundational research to expand the knowledge base of global supply chains in international marketing. We invite all types of research—qualitative, behavioral, and empirical—and encourage researchers to identify multiple sources of data and use multiple methods for this special issue. Conceptual papers and critical reviews are also welcome.

Suggested topics include, but are not restricted to:

• How can international marketing managers effectively control the governance mechanism and, thus, manage relationships with different global supply chain participants and members in the ecosystem across different countries to mitigate emerging geopolitical disruptions?
• How can international marketing managers leverage emerging technologies like AI, blockchain, machine learning, virtual reality, and big data for global supply chain management? What is the role of those emerging technologies for international marketing managers in coping with the challenges in the global supply chain activities?
• What is the role of digitalization (e.g., EDI, internet-based platforms, virtual meetings, social networks) in global supply chains in seeking efficiency, timeliness, as well as agility for international marketing managers?
• What is the role of blockchain and decentralized technologies in global supply chains, and how do they affect interorganizational relationships and efficiency in global supply chains?
• What marketing strategies, resources, and capabilities are needed for different types of firms to manage global supply chains given recent technological, geopolitical and other changes?
• What is the role of different institutional contexts in global supply chain management strategies?
• Can informal institutions such as culture and norms in different countries affect global supply chain management strategies?
• How do ESG initiatives and requirements shape firms’ global supply chain management? How can firms develop strategies and resources to meet ESG requirements for their global supply chains?
• How do suppliers or contract manufacturers manage their global account relationships across different countries in the uncertain global market environment?
• How does marketing–supply chain integration affect firms’ global supply chain management given recent changes? Has the role of marketing changed in global supply chain management—and if so, how?
• What are the impacts and implications of advanced technology and technology-based platforms on a firm’s globalization of its supply chain activities?
• What is the impact of digital technologies in offshoring, onshoring, and reshoring of a firm’s manufacturing activities?
• What are the global, regional, and local market implications of reshoring of a firm’s manufacturing activities for international marketing managers and for managing global supply chains?

Submission Process

All manuscripts will be reviewed as a cohort for this special issue of the Journal of International Marketing . All submissions will go through the Journal of International Marketing’s double-anonymized review and follow standard norms and processes. Submissions must be made via the journal’s ScholarOne site , with author guidelines available here . For any queries, feel free to reach out to the special issue editors.

Manuscripts must be submitted between December 1, 2024 and March 1, 2025.

Guest editors.

Daekwan Kim ([email protected]) is Spencer-Feheley MBA Professor in the College of Business at Florida State University and a Visiting Eminent Scholar at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, Korea. His research interests include the impact of IT and Industry 4.0 on interfirm relationships and relational performance, marketing/international marketing strategies, and international buyer–seller relationships. His research has appeared in the Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Academy of Marketing Science, Decision Sciences Journal, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business Research, Journal of International Marketing, Journal of World Business, Management International Review, International Marketing Review, International Business Review, and others. He is currently a Senior Editor of International Business Review and an Associate Editor of Decision Sciences Journal, and serving on the editorial boards of Journal of International Business Studies, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business Research, Journal of International Marketing, and Thunderbird International Business Review. 

Ruey-Jer “Bryan” Jean ([email protected]) is Distinguished Professor of International Business at the Department of International Business, National Taiwan University, Taipei. He received his PhD from University of Manchester, UK. His research focuses on interorganizational relationship management and international new ventures in digital and data-rich environments, with a focus on emerging markets. He has published widely in peer-reviewed academic journals, including the Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Management Studies, Journal of World Business, Management International Review, International Business Review, International Marketing Review, Journal of Business Research, Journal of International Management, and Journal of International Marketing. He is currently an Associate Editor of International Marketing Review and serving on the editorial boards of Journal of Business Research, International Business Review, and Asia Pacific Journal of Management.

S. Tamer Cavusgil ([email protected]) is Regents’ Professor and Fuller E. Callaway Professorial Chair and Executive Director, CIBER, Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University. A trustee of Sabanci University in Istanbul, Türkiye. Tamer authored more than several dozen books and some 200 refereed journal articles. He mentored over 40 doctoral students at Michigan State and Georgia State who have become accomplished educators around the world. Tamer holds an honorary doctorate from The University of Hasselt and the University of Southern Denmark, in addition to being named as an Honorary Professor by Atilim University in Ankara, Türkiye. He is an elected Fellow of the Academy of International Business. Tamer holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Türkiye. He earned his MBA and PhD from the University of Wisconsin.

Ayşegül Özsomer ([email protected]) Ayşegül Özsomer is Professor of Marketing at Koç University, Istanbul, Türkiye. She specializes in global marketing, branding, emerging markets and the role of marketing in tough economic times. She has published in top scholarly journals including the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, International Journal of Research in Marketing, and Journal of International Marketing. Ayşegül received several research awards including the 2011 Gerald Hills Best Paper Award for ten-year impact on entrepreneurship research, the 2013 Cavusgil Award for her paper investigating the interplay between global and local brands, and the 2023 Cavusgil Award for her paper on marketing agility. She has held visiting scholar positions at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, the Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA, and Harvard University. Her co-authored book, The New Emerging Market Multinationals: Four Strategies for Disrupting Markets and the Competition (McGraw Hill) was selected the best strategy book by Business+Strategy.

Alicke, Knut, Tacy Foster, Katharina Hauck, and Vera Trautwein (2023), “Tech and Regionalization Bolster Supply Chains, but Complacency Looms,” McKinsey (November 3), https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insights/tech-and-regionalization-bolster-supply-chains-but-complacency-looms .

Bednarski, Lukasz, Samuel Roscoe, Constantin Blome, and Martin C. Schleper (2023), “Geopolitical Disruptions in Global Supply Chains: A State-of-the-Art Literature Review,” Production Planning & Control , https://doi.org/10.1080/09537287.2023.2286283 .

Davis, Cameron, Ben Safran, Rachel Schaff, and Lauren Yayboke (2023), “Building Innovation Ecosystems: Accelerating Tech Hub Growth,” McKinsey (February 28), https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-sector/our-insights/building-innovation-ecosystems-accelerating-tech-hub-growth .

Ejaz, Muhammad R. and Dániel Hegedűs (2023), “Designing a Conceptual Framework for Industry 4.0 Technologies to Enable Circular Economy Ecosystem,” Managing Global Transitions , 21 (2), 121–48.

Henrich, Jan, Jason Li, Carolina Mazuera, and Fernando Perez (2022), “Future-Proofing the Supply Chain,” McKinsey (June 14), https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insights/future-proofing-the-supply-chain .

Jeong, Insik, Ruey-Jer Jean, Daekwan Kim, and Saeed Samiee (2023), “Managing Disruptive External Forces in International Marketing,” International Marketing Review , 40 (5), 936–56.

Lee, Jeoung Y., Daekwan Kim, Byungchul Choi, and Alfredo Jiménez (2023), “Early Evidence on How Industry 4.0 Reshapes MNEs’ Global Value Chains: The Role of Value Creation Versus Value Capturing by Headquarters and Foreign Subsidiaries,” Journal of International Business Studies , 54 (4), 599–630.

Mateska, Ivana, Christian Busse, Andrew P. Kach, and Stephan M. Wagner (2023), “Sustainability-Related Transgressions in Global Supply Chains: When Do Legitimacy Spillovers Hurt Buying Firms the Most?” Journal of Supply Chain Management , 59 (4), 42–78.

Panwar, Rajat, Jonatan Pinkse, and Valentina De Marchi (2022), “The Future of Global Supply Chains in a Post-COVID-19 World,” California Management Review , 64 (2), 5–23.

Tan, Hooi (2023), “It’s Time to Join the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” SME Media (June 22), https://www.advancedmanufacturing.org/smart-manufacturing/its-time-to-join-the-fourth-industrial-revolution/article_035bc430-059d-11ef-b638-d772541cc117.html .

Usui, Tetsuya, Masaaki Kotabe, and Janet Y. Murray (2017), “A Dynamic Process of Building Global Supply Chain Competence by New Ventures: The Case of Uniqlo,” Journal of International Marketing , 25 (3), 1–20.

Vertinsky, Ilan, Yingqiu Kuang, Dongsheng Zhou, and Victor Cui (2023), “The Political Economy and Dynamics of Bifurcated World Governance and the Decoupling of Value Chains: An Alternative Perspective,” Journal of International Business Studies , 54 (7), 1351–77.

Go to the Journal of International Marketing

By continuing to use this site, you accept the use of cookies, pixels and other technology that allows us to understand our users better and offer you tailored content. You can learn more about our privacy policy here

POPULAR TOPICS

An employee holds a silicon wafer with chips etched into it as US Vice President Kamala Harris, not pictured, visits Applied Materials in Sunnyvale, California, on May 22, 2023. (Photo by Jim WILSON / POOL / AFP)

Here’s how Applied Materials manages supply chain and semiconductor research

By Dashveenjit Kaur | 5 June, 2023

• Tech Wire Asia interviews Brian Tan of Applied Materials
• Tan discusses investment in US and Singapore

Earlier this month, Applied Materials, an American maker of semiconductor fabrication equipment, unveiled plans to plow US$4 billion into a collaborative research and development (R&D) facility in Silicon Valley over the next seven years. The 180,000-square-foot facility, known as the Equipment and Process Innovation and Commercialization (EPIC) Center, is expected to create 2,000 engineering jobs.

The EPIC Center will mainly provide chipmakers and university researchers with a space to develop prototype designs for next-generation process tech and pre-release equipment. When the facility come online in 2026, it will be an opportunity to work on, play with, and validate designs at an earlier stage. 

For Applied Materials it presents a chance to develop tools and equipment better suited to emerging semiconductor tech, so much so that the semiconductor equipment maker expects the facility to speed the development of new semiconductor tec h by as much as 30% compared to today.

“The industry needs a new model that breaks down traditional silos, builds denser networks of collaboration, and delivers tighter feedback loops that can increase the speed and lower the cost of innovation,” the company said in a statement  on May 22. Applied Materials have so far claimed support from more than a dozen chipmakers, foundry operators, and universities, including Intel, AMD, TSMC, MIT, and UC Berkeley, to name a few.

US Vice President Kamala Harris (2R), holding a silicone wafer, speaks with Applied Materials CEO Gary E. Dickerson (R) and employees, Yann Lapnet (L) and Satomi Angelika Murayama (2L) while touring a site where the company plans to build a $4 billion research facility on May 22, 2023, in Sunnyvale, California. (Photo by Jim WILSON / POOL / AFP)

“For the first time, chipmakers can have their own dedicated space within an equipment supplier facility, extending their in-house pilot lines and providing early access to next-generation technologies and tools – months or even years before equivalent capabilities can be installed at their facilities,” the statement reads.

WHAT DOES APPLIED MATERIALS’ FORECAST SAY ABOUT CHIP DEMAND?

Dashveenjit Kaur | 20 February, 2023

Applied Materials has long advocated ongoing R&D in the semiconductor industry. Since the pandemic, the company has focused on bolstering its R&D capabilities to accelerate the commercialization of new technologies and services that improve chip power, performance, area, cost, and time-to-market (PPACt).

In light of all the recent happenings in the company and the industry, Tech Wire Asia  caught up with Brian Tan, Vice President of Applied Global Services and Regional President for Applied Materials Southeast Asia, during  SEMICON SEA 2023 .

TWA: How critical is R&D in the semiconductor industry?

Tan: Semiconductors have become crucial to the global economy, and because of that, the requirement for R&D and innovations has never been more vital. If you look at where Applied Materials is, especially with our materials engineering leadership position, we drive innovation specifically around these few areas that we call PPACt.

If you break down this entire requirement for innovation, these are a few foundational blocks. For Applied Materials, the critical element of innovation is time. We have a leadership position and hold ourselves accountable for supporting our customers to untangle the most challenging technical problems. 

So we are solving the industry’s toughest challenges.

TWA: How will the EPIC Center in California fit into Applied Materials’ R&D plans? 

Brian Tan, Vice President, Applied Global Services and Regional President, at Applied Materials Southeast Asia.

Tan: You may have heard that we spent US$2.8 billion last year on R&D – every given year, no less than 10% [of turnover]. As for this, EPIC Center is Applied Materials putting money where its mouth is, investing US$4 billion on just the infrastructure and the capitalization of the center in the next seven years. So that’s a significant commitment. Applied Materials has to maintain our materials engineering leadership. 

And why I use the words innovation and collaboration because, on the innovation front, this center is all about accelerating the speed of innovation. We do that by collaborating and bringing our customers, our industry partners, the best academics, the brightest minds, and the most promising talent together. We are one of, if not the only, companies that can bring these companies into collaboration. 

This physical space is a concept, a platform, to accelerate innovation, and we do that by bringing people in to collaborate in totally different ways than before. So that’s a fundamental shift.

TWA: Let’s briefly get into the semiconductor shortage and supply constraints. Where does the industry stands today?

Tan: I believe there is absolutely no doubt where semiconductors are headed. If you look at what happened in the last super cycle, the three brightest years for the semiconductor industry happened in the darkest years of COVID-19, even amid lockdowns and global disruptions.

Until the end of last year, we saw a minor correction, especially in the memory market. So that has some impact. The pandemic has also exposed the vulnerability of the supply chain situation because this industry went through years of globalization. 

So a lot has changed, and we have understood that the supply chain system is entangled and intertwined. Supply chain efficiency was at a world-class just-in-time method, whereas now everyone is talking of a just-in-case approach. That is why we’re still sorting that out. So in that sense, the last three years have brought some corrections. 

TWA: Has chip nationalism impacted Applied Materials in any way?

Tan: Semiconductors are going to be everywhere. Applied Materials supports all customers globally, and we are very clear on where we believe the industry will go. We are doubling down on critical and principal locations that have worked very well for us, especially in the US and Singapore . 

That’s actually from a client material standpoint, where we will continue to invest. So that strategy for us has been evident.

TWA: What are some of the latest SEA R&D plans?

Tan: The Singapore 2030 plan covers the entire aspiration of what Applied Materials will be doing in the next seven years towards the end of this decade. It is focused on this expansion of our manufacturing capacity. I’ve told you why semiconductors are so important and how we need the physical ability to manufacture them, and it has to be in the correct location. So we decided Singapore is the right place. 

Therefore, we are deepening our R&D here, so Singapore is one critical hub. We also want to deepen partnerships with ecosystems, including academia and suppliers. The last one is so foundational, which is our commitment to upskill, reskill, and bring in top talent. Those four pillars are critical as part of the Singapore 2030 plan. 

Singapore is Applied Materials’ sole Center of Excellence for advanced packaging. So every work we do for advanced packaging is done out of Singapore. And I think you know very well that heterogeneous integration and advanced packaging is one of the most significant technologies since there are talks on the shrinking of devices, and that is why I firmly believe it will be the next major thing in the industry.

By Dashveenjit Kaur

Dashveen writes for Tech Wire Asia and TechHQ, providing research-based commentary on the exciting world of technology in business. Previously, she reported on the ground of Malaysia's fast-paced political arena and stock market.

• The threat of fraud networks in the APAC: KYC and beyond
• Next-gen CX is based on customer communication management systems.
• Enhancing Business Agility with SASE: Insights for CIOs in APAC
• 3 Steps to Successfully Automate Copilot for Microsoft 365 Implementation
• Trustworthy AI – the Promise of Enterprise-Friendly Generative Machine Learning with Dell and NVIDIA

TRENDING TOPICS