News Room

The COVID-19 crisis may be unfolding on an unprecedented scale, but to U-M engineering associate professor Siqian Shen, its web of logistical puzzles seems eerily familiar.  Where to put testing centers, which public facilities to close, and how to allocate ICU beds and design medical triage processes are the kinds of problems that industrial operations researchers like her have been solving for decades. She believes models that are saving businesses money today could be used to save lives tomorrow.

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

At the Costco in Spokane Valley, Wash., the store is practicing social distancing by limiting how many customers can be in the store at one time. A line wrapped around the building Friday, March 20, 2020, but was moving so that the wait was only around 10-15 minutes. (Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review via AP)

When asked how the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is impacting patients in need of an organ transplant, Sridhar Tayur said there is good news and bad news on that front. Tayur is the Ford distinguished research chair and professor of operations management at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, and he has been paying close attention to the subject of organ transplants during the current crisis. 

On Friday morning, Matthew Johnson-Roberson sat at his office window in Ann Arbor, Michigan, looking out at his favorite restaurant gone dark. As cities and states rush to stem the spread of the coronavirus, restaurants across the country are closing doors to eat-in diners. “The economic impact is huge,” said Johnson-Roberson, an associate professor of engineering at the University of Michigan. “I’m really worried that these restaurants aren’t going to come back.”