Reimagining Supply Chains for National Resiliency: Proceedings of a Forum (2025)
Chapter: Front Matter
Reimagining Supply Chains for National Resiliency
PROCEEDINGS OF A FORUM
CONVENED SEPTEMBER 30, 2024
Prepared by Steve Olson for the
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NOTICE: The subject of this publication is the forum titled Reimagining Supply Chains for National Resiliency, held during the 2024 annual meeting of the National Academy of Engineering.
Opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed in this publication are those of the forum participants and not necessarily the views of the National Academy of Engineering.
International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-309-10002-1
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Suggested citation: National Academy of Engineering. 2025. Reimagining Supply Chains for National Resiliency: Proceedings of a Forum. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/29109.
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Preface
Supply chains are critical for our well-being. They touch all critical sectors of the economy, including aerospace, agriculture, defense, energy, health care, microelectronics and semiconductors, transportation and logistics, critical materials, and many more. When supply chains fail, we suffer, as we learned during the COVID-19 pandemic.
We also learned that the challenges we faced then can be overcome if we reimagine supply chains with the goal of ensuring our national resiliency. This reimagining must take place with a view of resiliency as well as efficiency and effectiveness for today, tomorrow, and well into the future.
The 2024 annual meeting of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), which also marked the NAE’s 60th anniversary, highlighted the importance of supply chains and the need to rethink, rebuild, and secure them as vital components of the nation’s infrastructure.1 At the featured plenary session, Laurie Locascio, under secretary of commerce for Standards and Technology and director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), described NIST’s ongoing role in providing the supply chains on which US industry depends. She particularly focused on the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which is investing $52 billion in funding to bring semiconductor supply chains back to the United States, create jobs, support American innovation, and protect our national security.
The forum of the 2024 annual meeting brought together four experts on supply chain issues to share their experiences, perspectives, and predictions. Darío Gil, senior vice president and director of research at IBM, complemented Locascio’s presentation with an examination of how best to promote and protect semiconductor manufacturing in the United States. Steven
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1 Recordings of the plenary presentation and forum, along with other parts of the NAE annual meeting, are available at https://www.nae.edu/316677/2024AnnualMeeting.
Walker, vice president and chief technology officer at Lockheed Martin, looked at how to strengthen supply chains in the aerospace and defense sector. Taiyin Yang, former executive vice president of pharmaceutical development and manufacturing at Gilead Sciences, examined the critical role of supply chains in drug development. And Russell Allgor, chief scientist for Amazon.com, looked at a supply chain millions of Americans use daily: the delivery of packages from Amazon.
The forum was again adroitly moderated by Deanne Bell, who has been a mechanical engineer at Raytheon and a television host for such networks as PBS, National Geographic, and CNBC. She is also the founder and CEO of Future Engineers, an education technology company that engages students in online contests and challenges. Recently, her company was selected by NASA to host the Mars “Name the Rover” contest.
The 2024 NAE annual meeting on “Reimagining Supply Chains for National Resiliency” represented a call to action for the nation’s top engineers in business, government, and academia to come together and reimagine next-generation supply chains. New tools such as artificial intelligence and new business models are advancing and applying new understandings of the world’s industrial linkages. The combination of these tools and the profound expertise represented by the members of the National Academy of Engineering could ensure that our supply chains and productivity remain resilient for decades to come.
Co-chairs of the technical program at the 2024 NAE annual meeting:
Alton D. Romig, Jr.
Executive Officer
National Academy of EngineeringAjay P. Malshe
Goodson Distinguished Professor of
Mechanical Engineering
Purdue University
Contents
1 Reimagining Supply Chains for National Resiliency
The Pivotal Role of Semiconductors
Jumpstarting Private Investment
Supporting Research and Development
Timeframes, Intellectual Property, and Workforce Development
2 Promoting and Protecting Semiconductor Supply Chains
Transforming Supply Chains in the Aerospace and Defense Sector
