BALTIMORE, MD, November 12, 2024 – New research in the INFORMS journal Manufacturing & Service Operations Management is guiding the development of more inclusive and efficient electricity markets. The work demonstrates how aggregating small-scale, distributed energy resources (DERs) like solar panels can effectively balance the power of large utility companies.
Global supply chains are undergoing an irrevocable shift. While material flows remain critical, they are only the most visible aspect of this transition. Beneath the surface, changes in information exchanges, financial reconfigurations, and human capital movements are posing far greater risks to the benefits of global trade. The US, China, and the rest the world must handle these changes with care and perspective.
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When the first doses of a COVID-19 from Pfizer and BioNTech were administered across the United States on Monday, it marked the beginning of a mass distribution effor that hinges on an unlikely product: dry ice.
Several thousand doses of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine were quarantined in California and Alabama after the US authorities encountered a transit anomaly that caused the storage temperature to get too cold. According to Gen. Gustave Perna, the one overseeing the logistics for Operation Warp Speed, the doses never left the truck, but they have to ensure that this anomaly is safe.
Sheldon H. Jacobson doesn’t mince words about the lack of a coordinated effort to collect reliable data about COVID. “Data collection has been a disaster during this pandemic,” says Jacobson, a Founder Professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois and a leader at INFORMS, an association for operations research and analytics professionals. “For someone who uses data and analyzes data, it took me months to get info from the CDC.”
As delivery trucks rumble out of Pfizer’s Michigan plant with an escort from U.S. Marshals, they are also under the watchful eye of FedEx employees. Each box of vaccines is equipped with Bluetooth and GPS sensors to monitor their location and temperature. “I refer to them as guardian angels,” said Richard Smith, regional president of the Americas for the shipping giant. “They are using the technology to have eyes on every single one of them to be alerted to any potential failure.”
For the second instalment of our 2020–21 speaker series, we had the pleasure of joining Dr. Opher Baron, Professor of Operations Management, from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. He shared his journey creating a Canadian marketplace for personal protective equipment (PPE) to help bridge the crucial supply chain gaps that swept across the country during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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