Willy Shih is the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Management Practice in Business Administration.  He is part of the Technology and Operations Management Unit, and he teaches in the MBA and Executive Education Programs.  His expertise is in manufacturing and product development, and he has written or co-authored more than 125 cases and teaching materials in industries ranging from semiconductors, information technology, consumer electronics, aerospace, transportation equipment, manufacturing processes and tools, and intellectual property.  His paper, “Restoring American Competitiveness,” co-authored with Gary Pisano, won the 2009 McKinsey Award.  His recent book, “Producing Prosperity – Why America Needs a Manufacturing Renaissance,” co-authored with Gary Pisano, has called attention to the link between manufacturing and innovation.  He is also the author of “Back Bay Battery,” a best-selling innovation simulation. (read more here)

This year, Willy Shih will lead the China/Taiwan IFC: Global Supply Chains; Two Sides of the Taiwan Strait. 

HAVE YOU EVER TAUGHT AN IFC BEFORE?

This is the fourth EC IFC that I am leading, and I also took one RC FIELD class to Chongqing, China two years ago.  In previous IFCs we have gone to Shanghai twice, and to India and Singapore.  My focus has always been on seeing operations tied to current issues in globalization and the global economy.

WHAT INTERESTS YOU MOST ABOUT BUSINESS IN CHINA AND TAIWAN?

This year, I thought it would be really interesting to look at what I consider a critical development — one that has gotten very little attention in the U.S. (although I did get a call from very high up in Washington last week about this). That issue is the Made in China 2025 initiative of the Chinese government, and how that will shape the future of so many technology product supply chains. While initially I wanted us to work on projects inside companies to delve into this in depth, that topic is so politically sensitive right now that we would run into a lot of obstacles.  So I decided to take a different tack, and we’re going to see the configuration of some important supply chains as part of an interlinked global sequential production system.

The way I sold this IFC to company partners, who I spent much of the summer asking to open their facilities for visits, was that most people really “don’t know where their stuff comes from.” We walk into a Costco, or we order from Amazon, but we really have little appreciation for the complex sequence of steps that put that product on the shelf (physical or virtual).  So companies have agreed to be open — extraordinarily open.  We’re going to see things that few people get to see on one trip, let alone in combination: smartphone assembly, and the production of the phone chips, the screens, the housings, the batteries; car parts, electric cars, color laser printers, TVs, drones, even one of the world’s largest container ports and the supporting logistical network.  What’s exciting to me is to watch how students grow — when that “ah ha” moment happens and they put it all together.  I hope we’ll have a lot of those moments as we get a very detailed picture of how world trade and globalization really work.

WHAT IS ONE THING YOU CAN’T TRAVEL WITHOUT? 

For me, it’s my passport.  I remember when I was in my early 20’s and I got to visit the then Soviet Union with a group from MIT.  I remember how people would look with great envy at my American passport, and it helped me recognize what a privilege it was to have one.

IF YOU HAD TO CHOOSE THREE WORDS TO DESCRIBE YOU AS A TRAVELER, WHAT WOULD THEY BE?

When I was in industry, we developed three informal rules, and let me offer those instead: “If you see food, eat it, because you don’t know when you will get another chance.  If you see an airplane seat, sleep, because you don’t know when you will get another chance.  If you see a projector, present, because it must be your turn.”  

I’ll boil that down into three words: flexibility, adaptability, and preparedness.