Using the PAST as we work through the PRESENT

This is an excerpt of the original article. It was written for the May-June 2020 edition of Supply Chain Management Review. The full article is available to current subscribers.

May-June 2020

Most of the time, when I sit down to write this column I look at what I wrote for the previous year’s issue for perspective or inspiration. The truth is, nothing I’ve written before, or experienced in my 64 years, has prepared me for COVID-19. I’m sure that most, if not all, of you can say the same. Yes, it’s a global crisis, but closer to home, it’s a supply chain crisis. Quite simply, even the best supply chains, at least those that are still operating, are broken.

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Back in the summer of 2018, Bruce C. Arntzen, then the executive director of the supply chain management program at MIT, asked me if I was interested in publishing research he was doing with Nima Kazemi, a postdoctoral associate at MIT, into whether supply chains had learned lessons from the 2008 Financial Crisis and were ready for the next collapse of the economy. Underlying the research were two simple questions: What will trigger the next collapse? And, were supply chain managers listening to the warning bells Arntzen and Kazemi were hearing and preparing their companies to survive the next recession?

At the time, it seemed a little crazy to publish the two-part series they had put together. After all, the stock market seemed to have overcome the laws of gravity and continued to push ever higher. But, we went ahead anyway.

Fast forward to late winter. As we began to put together the issue you’re reading, the answer to the first question seemed clear: A pandemic. And this time, it seemed foolish not to take a look at the second question. More than ever, supply chain managers need to look to lessons from the immediate past for insight into how to mange their supply chains in today’s crisis.

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