BALTIMORE, MD, October 15, 2024 – The opioid epidemic is a crisis that has plagued the United States for decades. One central issue of the epidemic is inequitable access to treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD), which puts certain populations at a higher risk of opioid overdose.
The supply chain for many small parcel shipping companies is typically long. Products are often made in distant lands, travel on oceans and waterways, arrive at ports, are then transported to warehouses, from where a third-party logistics provider delivers the product to its intended destination. In a stable world, shippers and customers alike can expect a product to be delivered within the promised time window. However, in a world facing high levels of uncertainty caused by war, pandemic, political instability, raw material shortages, freak accidents (recall the regional and national impact of the bridge collapse in the Port of Baltimore caused by a container ship), and weather, the shipper must work overtime to ensure customer expectations are met at no additional cost, despite these uncertainties.
The minimum wage is getting lip service on the campaign trail. Well-intentioned plans can backfire, Christopher Tang writes in a guest commentary.
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It turns out that we are flushing valuable information about our COVID-19 status down the toilet, and the key to tracing new cases requires taking a closer look in our sewers. These insights come from a recent study by Oded Berman, a professor of Operations Management and Statistics at the Rotman School of Management.
What to do about Covid? With nearly 60 million cases and 1.4 million deaths worldwide as of the end of November 2020, there are still no consistently effective treatments or approved vaccines yet (though large-scale vaccine trials have already produced promising results). Social distancing, mask wearing, and infection control practices can reduce the rate of spread somewhat, but as long as infectious individuals circulate amongst susceptible persons, continued spread is inevitable, given that most populations have not built immunity against SARS-CoV-2 to any meaningful extent.
Paper products and other household staples are in high demand in stores and online again as the virus surges and lockdowns loom, but none more so than those essential rolls of soft cotton squares. Photos of bare shelves and public pleas to leave behind a few rolls for other shoppers are overflowing social media. “The toilet paper aisle is CLEARED!” one person wrote on Twitter. “March 2.0 is here folkssss.”
The coronavirus revealed stark vulnerabilities in the supply chains that move products from the raw material stage, through production, and to a customer’s door. As key segments of this system faltered, businesses responded in real time, finding new ways to source materials and keep their products moving. The lessons learned from this experience can help companies transform how they view and build supply chains, says Matthew Elliott, Business Banking Midwest Region Executive for Bank of America.
While the development of a COVID-19 vaccine could generate billions of dollars for some pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer, concerns over accusations of exploiting the pandemic will likely temper profits, experts suggest. "It doesn't really make sense to profit from this pandemic," said Tinglong Dai, associate professor of operations management and business analytics at Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School in Baltimore.
OR/MS Today is the INFORMS member magazine that shares the latest research and best practices in operations research, analytics and the management sciences.
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