Labor and Supply Chain Networks: It’s All About People

The COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, conflicts and wars have dramatically illustrated the importance of labor in supply chain networks in numerous economic sectors, from agriculture to healthcare. In this talk, I will discuss our research on the inclusion on labor in supply chains both in optimization and game theory frameworks to elucidate the impacts of disruptions of labor in terms of availability as well as productivity on product flows, prices, and the objective functions of organizations, both profit and nonprofit ones. I will also highlight what can be done to ameliorate negative impacts and will discuss the power of setting appropriate wages on supply chain links from production and transportation to storage and the ultimate distribution to points of demand. The use of international migrants to alleviate shortages will be discussed and the impacts of the war on Ukraine on global supply chains. The inclusion of labor in blood service supply chains in healthcare and in humanitarian organization models for disaster preparedness and response will also be highlighted. I will conclude with some of our experiences in influencing policy in the pandemic.