Research Interests

Business and Supply Chain Innovations

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David Simchi-Levi is the William Barton Rogers Professor of Engineering Systems and serves as the head of the MIT Data Science Lab. He is considered one of the premier thought leaders in supply chain management and business analytics. His research, see Data Science Lab, focuses on developing and implementing robust and efficient techniques for operations management. He has published widely in professional journals on both practical and theoretical aspects of supply chain and revenue management.

David Simchi-Levi's Risk Exposure Model has pioneered a new approach to assessment of supply chain resilience and risk-tolerance. The work allows to quantitatively model and estimate the supply chain exposure to disruption and develop mitigation strategies. In February 2020, at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, Professor Simchi-Levi used the Risk Exposure Model to predict that supply chains in North America and Europe will stop by mid-march of that year, see HBR article, which is exactly what happened, see Fortune March 17, 2020 and New York Times March 18, 2020. Subsequently, in April of 2020, he coined the term Supply Chain Stress-Test, see HBR article, which relies on the Risk Exposure Model. Today companies around the globe are using his approach to quantify the resiliency of their supply chain and develop mitigation strategies.

He was the founder of LogicTools, which provided software solutions and professional services for supply chain optimization. LogicTools became part of IBM in 2009. In 2012, he co-founded OPS Rules, an operations analytics consulting company. The company became part of Accenture in 2016. In 2014, he co-founded Opalytics, a cloud analytics platform company focusing on operations and supply chain intelligence. The company became part of the Accenture Applied Intelligence in 2018.

See Prof. David Simchi-Levi's CV here.

Affiliations and Responsibilities

Service to the community

• Elected member of National Academy of Engineering (2023)
• Awarded the prestigious 2020 INFORMS Impact Prize for playing a leading role in developing and disseminating a new highly impactful paradigm for the identification and mitigation of risks in global supply chains.
• Management Science's 65th Anniversary Conference, May 20-21 2019, Boston University Questrom School of Business.
• Editor-in-Chief of Management Science.
• MSOM Distinguished Fellow Award, 2013
• Honor by the Journal Production and Operations Management, January-February 2013
• The 2012 Thinkers & Movers Award given by DSC Logistics.
• Board of Governors, Technion Israel Institute of Technology (Technion)
• Head, Accenture and MIT Alliance in Business Analytics
• Head, MIT-Technion Postdoctoral Fellowship Program
• INFORMS Fellow (Fellow Info)
• Former Editor-in-Chief of Operations Research.
• Former Editor-in-Chief of Naval Research Logistics.
• Former co-Director of the LGO Partnership.
• Former co-Director of the SDM Partnership.
• Director of the MIT Data Science Lab.
• Faculty/PI, Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS).
• A member of the MIT Operations Research Center.

Supply Chain Practice

From theory to implementation

• Prof David Simchi-Levi at NITIE Webinar - Government should prioritize critical supply chains to apply stress-test, The Times of India, August 10, 2020.
• Supply Chain Resiliency Webinar, hosted by National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), August 1, 2020.
• Building Resilient Supply Chains Won't Be Easy, Harvard Business Review, June 2020.
• Supply Chain Resiliency and the Need For Stress Test, Webinar hosted by MIT Corporate Relations, June 2020.
• We Need a Stress Test for Critical Supply Chains, Harvard Business Review, April 2020.
• Here's how the coronavirus could change supply chains, Share America, April 2020.
• Coronavirus: End of the Global Supply Chain? BBC News World Service - Business Daily, April 2020.
• Three Scenarios to Guide Your Global Supply Chain Recovery, MIT Sloan Management Review, April 2020.
• Supply chain outlook: The timing of the slowdown, MIT News Office, March 2020.
• How Coronavirus Could Impact the Global Supply Chain by Mid-March, Harvard Business Review, February 2020.
• Prioritisation and precision: How artificial intelligence and design thinking will transform technology production, The Economist, December 2018.
• Quand l'intelligence artificielle fait valser les prix, Les Echos, May 2018.
• Solving global business problems with data analytics, MIT Press, May 2018.
• "Using Data Analytics to Focus on Challenges Faced by Businesses" an ILP interview, May 2018.
• Retailers: A better algorithm could increase online sales by 76 percent, Chicago Booth Review, January 31, 2018.
• In MIT Three-Step Price Optimization Test, Sales and Profits Soar, WWD.com, January 26, 2018.
• The New Frontier of Price Optimization, MIT Sloan Management Review, Fall 2017.
• MIT Sloan Executive Education webinar, The New Frontier in Price Optimization, with MIT Sloan Professor David Simchi-Levi.
• One-on-One with Prof. Simchi-Levi, Supply Chain Navigator, Winter 2016
• You Can’t Understand China’s Slowdown Without Understanding Supply Chains, Harvard Business Review. September 2015.
• A New Approach to Manage Supply Chain Risk, Harvard Business Review. Webinar, 2015.
• Find the Weak Link in Your Supply Chain, Harvard Business Review, 2015
• 2014 Daniel H. Wagner Prize for Excellence in Operations Research Practice
• View Prof. David Simchi-Levi's Presentation
• View PDF Slides
• A New Method for Identifying Hidden Risk in Supply Chain
• From Superstorms to Factory Fires: Managing Unpredictable Supply-Chain Disruptions
• Operations and Supply Chain News
• When One Size Does Not Fit All,How Prof. Simchi-Levi helped Dell redesign its supply chain strategy
• Is It Time to Rethink Your Manufacturing Strategy?
• Some Firms Opt to Bring Manufacturing Back to U.S., The Wall Street Journal, July 2012.
• Finding the Optimum Process, an interview with Prof. Simchi-Levi in Compact, BBS' International Employee Magazine
• It's Time to Bring Manufacturing Back to the U.S.
• The 6-percent solution - How corporations can reduce greenhouse-gas emissions through better planning, MIT News, November 2010
• Supply Chain Management technologies, by David Simchi-Levi and Edith Simchi-Levi, chapter in The Handbook of Technology Management, edited by Hossein Bidgoli, January 2010
• Interview with Charlie Fine and David Simchi-Levi on Your Next Supply Chain, January 2010
• Crude Calculations; Why high oil prices are upending the way companies should manage their supply chains, D. Simchi-Levi, D. Nelson, N. Mulani and J. Wright, The Wall Street Journal, September 22, 2008