Supply Chain

With supply chain challenges not looking to end anytime soon, particularly as worker shortages continue, experts gathered online recently with some tips on how companies can find long-term solutions. However, labor isn’t the only issue. Robert Handfield, professor of supply chain management at North Carolina State University, said climate change, COVID, labor–all of these are hitting at once.

As we head into the new year, the novel coronavirus is surging once again. Despite the deja vu, though, we’re not in the same spot as before: We’ve uncovered a lot about COVID-19 in our second year of living with it.

That’s been the cry of the food industry, if not the nation and world as a whole, during the pandemic. Now, as Covid stubbornly lingers, that cry has shifted to a new set of problems with the supply chain, labor and inflation.

Predictions for the new year abound, and digital twins are expected to tally one in the winners’ column for 2022.

To better reduce COVID-19 transmission, the U.S. must learn from Europe. Americans need cheap or free at-home COVID-19 antigen testing kits. According to medical experts, they give a result in 15 minutes and typically identify 98% of infectious cases. Getting millions of at-home tests to Americans is the most important action the government can do.

In this week’s episode a professor and department chair comes on to discuss how the current supply chain crisis changes how professors educate about the supply chain.

RALEIGH, N.C. — With just 10 days until Christmas, many are hoping all those online orders will arrive on time.

“Consumers have to be more agile, and adaptive in their holiday purchases, and should have started shopping early. Turkeys, for example in some parts of the country and regions may not be available at the weight desired. Bacon supplies have increase in price, and steel for cans is also hard to come by. So canned products from pumpkin to cranberries, plus baking, pie and turkey pans are not as available. Families this year are expecting to gather in greater numbers than the year before. And there’s clearly excitement surrounding that, so adaptability, solid planning, and early shopping will all be key.”

Because of shipping backlogs caused by the supply-chain crisis, some hospitals are reporting shortages of lifesaving specialized medical devices, including ventilators, oxygen concentrators, and breathing tubes. "This is already 2021, but shipping companies cannot give an accurate hour-by-hour estimation about when goods will arrive or where they are," said Tinglong Dai, a professor at Johns Hopkins University who specializes in health care operations. And to get through this pandemic at your healthiest, don't miss these 35 Places You're Most Likely to Catch COVID.

URBANA, Illinois -- As COVID-19 cases soared during Fall 2020, discussions of herd immunity were ubiquitous. Yet, with effective vaccines available, and nearly 50 million confirmed U.S. cases reported, herd immunity is no longer a viable landing runway for COVID-19.