Article; Supply Chains Are Us https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/supply-chains-are-us/
Supply chains are large industrial systems. They are composed of heterogeneous elements, such as ships, aircraft, trains, and trucks, but also systems of labor, information, and finance that build them and connect them together. Usually the goods flow in one direction and money flows in the opposite direction. Their physical substrates are themselves industrial products, relying on ships, trucks, cranes, fossil fuels, and electric power, tied together by skilled human operators, supervisors, managers, and other industrial roles.
Book; How the World Ran Out of Everything https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2024/09/book-review-into-the-maelstrom-wellisz
Until its dramatic collapse, most people barely knew that something called the global supply chain existed, much less understood how much their daily lives depended on it. Then, suddenly, toilet paper and frozen chicken disappeared from supermarket shelves, and COVID-19 patients were left dying in hospitals for lack of medical equipment. How could it have happened? Enter Peter S. Goodman, veteran economics reporter for the New York Times, who chronicled the unfolding disaster at close quarters, from the factories of Shenzhen, China, to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and the truck stops and rail yards of Middle America. His reporting forms the heart of this new book, How the World Ran Out of Everything.