Discussion #5: The COVID-19 Discussion Series Part II – Trade Barriers and Suppl

Discussion #5: The COVID-19 Discussion Series Part II – Trade Barriers and Supply Chain Resilience
Those of us who lived through the COVID-19 pandemic will always remember how vulnerable we felt due to lack of medical care and supplies. Going forward, medical supply chains will have to make significant changes to mitigate this kind of crisis in the future.
For this final discussion forum of the course, let’s consider what adjustments medical supply chains will have to make to improve their resilience. In Chapters 14 through 26 of The New (Ab)Normal, you learned about technologies, management strategies, and geopolitical issues that will shape the supply chains of the future, including future technologies and trends that have not as yet emerged. Putting aside the content in Chapter 19, which deals directly with medical supply chains, what other technologies, strategies, or issues discussed in the latter half of the book might impact medical supply chains? For your original discussion thread post, pick one of these “topics” and provide your ideas on how that might be applied to medical supply chains. For example, pulling ideas from Chapter 21, what regulations or laws have or should be put in place to shore up the U.S. medical supply chain, in your opinion?
For your response post, discuss the pros and cons of another student’s considerations in medical supply chain resilience. Please be respectful of your colleagues and exhibit proper Netiquette with your post – see syllabus for details.
Include page numbers (where appropriate) when discussing content from the book.
Book:
Sheffi, Y. (2020). The New (ab)normal: Reshaping business and supply chain strategy beyond covid-19. MIT CTL Media.