Artificial Intelligence is frequently hailed as a transformative force for global supply chains, yet the gap between technological promise and operational reality remains a central challenge for industry leaders. In this episode, host Dr. Matthias Winkenbach, Director of Research at MIT CTL, leads a nuanced discussion on the transition from AI hype to the implementation of functional "decision technology." Joining the discussion are three researchers from MIT CTL who bring diverse perspectives t...
Jan 20, 2026•44 min•Ep. 39
Global food systems produce more than enough to feed the world—yet nearly one-third of all food is lost or wasted. Much of that loss happens far upstream, driven by perishability, cold chain failures, infrastructure gaps, climate pressures, and supply chain inefficiencies that span continents. In this episode, we’re joined by Dr. Chris Mejía, founder and director of the MIT Emerging Market Economies Logistics Lab, along with Drs. David Hidalgo and Mauricio Gámez, researchers who model solutions ...
Dec 17, 2025•54 min•Ep. 38
Rising geopolitical tensions and global trade volatility have revealed a key power struggle: supply chains are a matter of national security. This year’s annual report from the congressional U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission warns that China has begun weaponizing key supply chain chokepoints, from critical minerals to foundational semiconductors, creating risks that reach far beyond trade. In this episode, we’re joined by Livia Shmavonian and Josh Hodges, two commissioners of th...
Nov 18, 2025•41 min•Ep. 37
As global supply chains face new waves of political uncertainty, regulatory change, and economic pressure, one thing remains clear: sustainability still matters. The latest State of Supply Chain Sustainability Report from the MIT Sustainable Supply Chain Lab reveals that despite federal environmental rollbacks and shifting investor priorities, companies continue to see sustainability as central to long-term success. In this episode, we’re joined by Dr. Josué Velázquez Martínez, director of the l...
Oct 09, 2025•37 min•Ep. 36
Emerging markets play an essential role in global supply chains, providing much of the food, raw materials, and labor that keep the world running. But they also face unique challenges: fragmented systems, limited infrastructure, and volatile economies. At the same time, these regions hold immense potential for innovation, resilience, and growth if their logistics systems can adapt to meet rising pressures from climate change, geopolitical shocks, and shifting consumer demands. In this episode, w...
Sep 18, 2025•43 min•Ep. 35
Self-driving cars have been heralded by many as the future of transportation—promising safer roads, reduced traffic, and greater mobility for all. Yet despite rapid advancements in technology and a surge in assistive driving features, acceptance of full vehicle automation remains elusive. As the public grapples with questions of trust, safety, and responsibility, the road to widespread adoption of automated vehicles is anything but straightforward. The stakes are high: how we navigate this trans...
Jul 15, 2025•53 min•Ep. 34
Sustainability has become an imperative for many companies—but in the face of regulatory rollbacks and budget cuts, are those goals here to stay? In this episode, we explore how companies can meaningfully pursue sustainability, even amid shifting political and economic pressures. We discuss growing public support for sustainability, the role of data and modeling in shaping corporate sustainability strategies, and how companies can build resilient, responsible supply chains. In this episode, we’r...
May 13, 2025•38 min•Ep. 33
In recent years, online education has come to the forefront as an alternative to traditional education programs. Its increasing prominence reflects its adaptability, flexibility, affordability, and far-reaching scale. As the global workforce stands to undergo significant changes in the next 5-10 years due to digitalization, advancements in AI, and automation, employers are increasingly valuing skills over degrees. For workers, this requires a practice of continuous learning. In this episode, we’...
Mar 04, 2025•38 min•Ep. 32
In this episode we sit down with Dr. Matthias Winkenbach, Director of Research at the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics, Alejandro González, Software Business Unit Director at Mecalux, and Iñaki Fernández, Chief Technology Officer at Mecalux. Mecalux, a provider of warehouse management solutions, is a founding research partner of the new MIT Intelligent Logistics Systems Lab, which is at the forefront of advancing logistics through innovative technology. We discuss how AI and machine...
Jan 09, 2025•32 min•Ep. 31
Vehicle routing is one of the most well-understood, extensively studied problems in both history and academia—it's been studied by academics since the early 1800s. Yet 200 years later, optimal efficiency remains just out of reach. And given the enormous increase in pressure for consumer expectations in recent years, that remaining "last mile" of vehicle routing efficiency could, on a global scale, make a huge difference to a huge number of people. In this episode, we're joined by Matthias Winken...
Jul 16, 2024•48 min•Ep. 30
In this episode, we sit down with members of the MIT Low Income Firms Transformation (LIFT) Lab : Director Josué Velázquez Martínez, Postdoctoral Researcher Sreedevi Rajagopalan, and Doctoral Student Fabio Castro. We discuss the LIFT Lab's work empowering micro-retailers and nanostores in emerging markets to lift themselves out of poverty. These retailers, while making up an overwhelming majority of retail business in their regions, are at a significant disadvantage when dealing with large suppl...
May 29, 2024•43 min•Ep. 29
Warehouses are undergoing a fundamental transformation—in response to the explosion of growth in the e-commerce space and worldwide large-scale supply chain disruptions, warehouses have gone from places simply for goods to sit to highly interconnected, automated hubs of activity. Warehouses of the future leverage new technologies in automation and digitalization to enhance precision, flexibility, and efficiency to adapt quickly to changing market and supply chain trends and needs. In this episod...
Mar 25, 2024•54 min•Ep. 28
On this episode, we're joined by Melanie Nuce-Hilton, SVP for Innovation and Partnerships at GS1 US , a nonprofit standards organization best known for administering the Universal Product Code (UPC) barcode—and celebrating its fiftieth anniversary right around the same time as MIT CTL. Melanie talks all about the history of supply chain standards over the last 50 years, including the UPC barcode, RFID, and others. And she also discusses the exciting innovations that are on the horizon to uncover...
Jan 08, 2024•47 min•Ep. 27
MIT CTL Research Scientist David Correll joins us to share findings from the State of Supply Chain Sustainability 2023. Pressure on firms to make their supply chains more sustainable has increased over the past four years and isn't going anywhere, though the distinct areas of sustainability on which that pressure focuses are constantly changing. Indeed, sustainability is complex and contains multitudes. The report also takes a look at firms' progress on achieving their Scope 3 emissions goals. T...
Nov 29, 2023•38 min•Ep. 26
In this episode, MIT CTL Director Yossi Sheffi, an expert with nearly five decades of experience in the supply chain and logistics areas, sits down with Susan Lacefield, Executive Editor of Supply Chain Quarterly . Yossi and Susan discuss the miracle of modern global supply chains—a magic conveyor belt that moves goods from mines and forests to supermarket shelves. They also discuss supply chain resilience in the face of major disruptions, the growing role that AI will play in supply chains, and...
Sep 29, 2023•40 min•Ep. 25
"Hope is not a strategy." In this episode, we are joined by Kathy Fulton, Executive Director of the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN), who discusses her work connecting private-sector resources with disaster response needs: a "gray sky" response, after a disaster hits. For instance, if a supplier has excess food they need to offload, ALAN will connect them with a warehouse with the capacity to accept the delivery. ALAN forges partnerships between various players in the supply chain as well a...
Aug 15, 2023•36 min•Ep. 24
In the wake of a disaster, restoring supply chains can be critical in assuring that the most vital needs of affected communities are met. In this episode, Tim Russell and Lauren Finegan of the MIT Humanitarian Supply Chain Lab discuss the fundamentals of humanitarian logistics and disaster response—including how to best build resilient communities, how the public and private sectors can work together for optimal disaster response, and how their research and work helps inform and strengthen disas...
Jul 31, 2023•31 min•Ep. 23
Supply chain design has traditionally been conducted with only one dimension in mind: cost minimization. The conventions of supply chain design date largely from the 1990s. But major technological strides have been made in the years since, allowing for much more complex considerations to be taken into account. So most companies, by using this obsolete approach, are putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage. Today's episode features Milena Janjevic, Research Scientist at the MIT Center for...
May 11, 2023•45 min•Ep. 22
Truckload transportation services procurement is costly and time-intensive. These months-long procurement events typically result in thousands of contracts between shippers and carriers. The contracts cover each of the shipper’s product distribution lanes or origin-destination pairs. Due to truckload supply and demand uncertainty, shippers often adopt a coverage strategy to secure contracted capacity on combinations of lanes to meet expected demand. However, this strategy leads to unnecessary co...
Nov 02, 2022•24 min•Ep. 21
This episode marks the second installment of research scientist David Correll speaking with the 2021–22 MIT CTL military fellows: US Army Col. Joe Parker, Lt. Col. Brian Young, and Louisiana National Guard Lt. Col. Stephen J. Luebbert. Today’s conversation is all about empathetic leadership. Parker, Young, and Luebbert discuss how leading teams in high-stress environments like military combat requires empathy and humility. They revisit continual process improvement, applying the "red cell" strat...
Aug 11, 2022•54 min•Ep. 20
In today’s episode, research scientist David Correll speaks with the 2021–22 MIT CTL military fellows: US Army Col. Joe Parker, Lt. Col. Brian Young, and Louisiana National Guard Lt. Col. Stephen J. Luebbert. The fellows discussed their experiences in the military and the MIT SCM program. For written and downloadable transcripts visit ctl.mit.edu Their conversation explores the differences and similarities between private-sector and military supply chains in strategy, leadership, and on-the-grou...
Apr 26, 2022•31 min•Ep. 19
Join MIT Global SCALE Connect for an in-depth conversation with Paul Granadillo, SVP Global Supply Chain at Moderna. MIT Professor Yossi Sheffi speaks with Paul about how the pandemic vaccine response reshaped manufacturing, business, and supply chains at Moderna. Mr. Granadillo shares his professional experiences learned from joining the company during a time of growth. He describes some of the methods Moderna uses to meet its logistics and production requirements during the ramp-up to a global...
Feb 11, 2022•30 min•Ep. 18
Bottleneck analysis aiming to increase asset productivity has commonly been applied inside the four walls of production and distribution facilities. The pandemic disrupted global supply chains with dramatic shifts in demand and constraints in supply with cascading effects. Shippers then dynamically shifted traditional origin-destination patterns causing stress on the networks of logistics service providers. As a result, bottlenecks in the global movement of goods continue to emerge in new locati...
Dec 08, 2021•30 min•Ep. 17
Earlier this year, MIT CTL's David Correll spoke with over-the-road truckers about their experiences in order to shed light on why it is that U.S. truckers appear to be both scarce and underutilized at the same time. During the year, Dr. Correll oversaw three MIT SCM master's capstones that addressed truck driver utilization and retention in contrast to shipper and receiver policies and practices. These were completed as part of the MIT FreightLab's Driver Initiative . In today's episode, we hea...
Sep 29, 2021•39 min•Ep. 16
The MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics (MIT CTL) and Amazon engaged with a global community of researchers across a range of disciplines, from computer science to business operations, to supply chain management, challenging them to build data-driven route optimization models leveraging massive historical route execution data and machine learning models. While we congratulated the winning teams and all participants in the news, Dr. Matthias Winkenbach joins today's Frontiers to share s...
Aug 11, 2021•24 min•Ep. 15
Today, on MIT Supply Chain Frontiers, editorial director, Ken Cottrill speaks with Maria Jesus Sáenz, director of MIT Digital Supply Chain Transformation Lab, about how companies use artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify key performance and key learning indicators during digital transformations. Sáenz shares examples of how companies may use AI and ML to collaborate on data models and leverage publicly available data to craft more accurate forecasts or discover hidden efficien...
Jun 15, 2021•20 min•Ep. 14
In today’s episode, Research Scientists Alexis Bateman and Inma Borrella speak with Mark Bakker, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Global Operations at Hewlett Packard Enterprise about the tools and skills needed for sustained global supply chain management when facing disruptions. Mark shares his insights about how HP Enterprise balanced demand and supply during uncertain conditions brought about by various disruptions. He shares tips about the skills and attitudes needed to succeed ...
May 13, 2021•38 min•Ep. 13
This year for international women's day, the MIT Women in Supply Chain Initiative (WISCI) hosted a leadership panel to celebrate women working in the supply chain field. Today's episode offers highlights from the conversation. Julie Van de Kamp, Vice President of Customer Experience at U.S. Xpress, Inc, and Tricia Brannigan, VP Procurement - Head of Global Procurement at The Hershey Company share candidly with WISCI Lead, Katie Date, about their approaches to managing, mentorship, and work-life ...
Apr 08, 2021•38 min•Ep. 12
Supply chains in the U.S. rely heavily on over-the-road trucking to reliably and safely provide essential supplies to businesses and consumers. These networks are comprised of innumerable relationships between shippers who have goods to move and carriers who they contract to move them. It is often warehouse workers and truckers who are the "end users" of these complex relationships. Today, MIT CTL research scientist and FreightLab co-director David Correll chats with three experienced voices in ...
Feb 23, 2021•31 min•Ep. 11
Initial research indicates that there are both commercial and social benefits to DE&I programs within organizations. MIT CTL and MIT Sustainable Supply Chains make a case for companies to revisit their efforts (HBR article) and, if necessary, commit themselves to take supplier diversity efforts more seriously. During a recent MIT CTL roundtable*, professionals from across industry met to discuss the challenges and opportunities currently facing the implementation of supplier diversity within...
Jan 27, 2021•17 min•Ep. 10
