By Ashley Dorna, Executive Vice President, Supply Chain and IT, Niagara Bottling, LLC, and Jim Rice, Deputy Director, MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics
You are grappling with age-old questions: What should my supply chain look like in the future? What new innovation can I apply to lower costs, increase service levels, and disrupt competitors?
By Dr. Yossi Sheffi, LinkedIn Influencer
Recent reports that Amazon.com is testing its own truck network for the delivery of orders to consumers’ doorsteps surmise, not surprisingly, that the move represents a threat to parcel carriers such as FedEx and UPS.
As is often the case when complex competitive strategies hit the headlines, however, there may be more to this story than meets the eye.
Community springs to action after the Philippines’ deadliest natural disaster
By Chris Caplice & Francisco Jauffred
Can both levers be coordinated to create the right level of resilience despite unforeseen changes in the environment, such as lead time delays, demand fluctuations or network failures?
According to Jim Rice, deputy director of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, folks in the industry are concerned that “a 20-fold increase in scanning will add enormous delays and costs, and those concerns have not been genuinely addressed yet.”
By María Jesús Sáenz, Program Director and Professor of Supply Chain Management for the MIT Global SCALE Network, and Luis Herrero, CIO and Supply Director for Leroy Merlin in Spain.
By Dr. Yossi Sheffi, LinkedIn Influencer
When asked if supply chain management (SCM) is simply moving stuff around quickly and cheaply, Yossi Sheffi, the Elisha Gray II Professor of Engineering Systems at MIT, smiles and poses his own question: “Are you crazy? It’s life. Everything you buy depends upon it.” Supply chains also create millions of jobs globally and “at salaries about equal to manufacturing jobs,” says Sheffi, director of the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics (MIT CTL).
By Dr. Yossi Sheffi, LinkedIn Influencer
Supply chain management (SCM) is no longer the Rodney Dangerfield of corporate functions.
While sales and marketing wins customers, SCM keeps them with excellent service and unfailing on-shelf availability. And these qualities are becoming even more important in the age of e-commerce.
Regions and countries around the world are competing fiercely to hold on to factories while incubating new, high-tech industries. Yet, for many, there may be a more sustainable path to success: becoming a logistics center for transportation and distribution.
Business executives spend a lot of time fretting over the supply chain, and for good reason. Making the right decisions about mobile commerce and web-based logistics can make or break a company. Yet just when you think you've got a handle on it, the supply chain goes and changes again
The Supply Chain at MIT blog was named one of SupplyChainOpz's Top 50 Supply Chain Blogs of 2014.
By Bob Ferrari
This week, Supply Chain Matters had the opportunity to be invited to MIT’s Global Supply Chain and Logistics Excellence (SCALE) Research Expo 2014 which was held on the MIT campus. These was the third consecutive year that we have attended this event and remain impressed with the caliber and potential of supply chain focused candidates within MIT’s international student programs.
At MIT’s Research Expo 2014, the future of supply chain was on display
By Bob Trebilcock, Executive Editor, Modern Materials Handling
You would think that issues like cost reductions, customer service levels and fuel prices would top the list of things that keeps distribution, transportation and supply chain managers up at night. After all, those are the items by which we are most often measured when bonuses are handed out.
MIT's High-Viz Supply Chain Project is developing a way for companies to automatically map and analyze supply chain risk. Bruce Arntzen, executive director of the Supply Chain Management Program at MIT, explains the methodology underlying this project, progress to date and barriers that still exist.
By Jim Rice, Deputy Director, MIT CTL
This is the first in the series of Innovation Strategies columns from the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics. In the coming issues, MIT CTL will explore the development and implementation of innovative supply chain solutions and practices.
Revolutionary innovations capture the imagination and motivate people. But how many supply chain innovations (SCI) are truly revolutionary?
Supply chain and logistics play key roles in responding to both acute and chronic humanitarian crises. Whether the cause is a natural disaster, armed conflict or simply undeveloped infrastructure, Jarrod Goentzel says the MIT Humanitarian Response Lab is working to improve supply chain response.
Chris Caplice, executive director of the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics, discusses his research on identifying dominant designs in logistics and how these designs, in which companies are heavily invested, may be disrupted by emerging trends. [Run Time (Min.): 10:20]
Having a sustainable supplier network is now a near-universal goal among companies - but so far, getting there hasn't been easy.
Australia’s University of Sydney Business School's Institute of Transport and Logistic Studies (ITLS) has joined with six of the world's leading research institutions in an effort to address the complex challenges facing ports and their related maritime and logistics industries.
The group, to be known as the Global Port Research Alliance (GPRA), aims to establish a global research and training platform in port operations, maritime and logistics through collaboration between its members and with industry
When companies engage with a shipper, regardless of the industry or the complexity of the supply chain, the first area to focus on is where supply chain stands in the organization. Although supply chain management is now a generally understood function in most companies, organizations often struggle to get supply chain management on the key initiatives list for their CEO’s. There could be a number of reasons for that omission. We often hear that supply chain management is just too complicated or broad to take a focused approach.
Effective collaboration on logistics can move mountains — and reduce emissions.
By Dr. Edgar E. Blanco and Ken Cottrill
By Dr. Joseph F. Coughlin, Director of the MIT AgeLab
Aid doesn't start flowing until after a disaster takes place, but NGOs and relief organizations need cash before it all hits the fan. How do you solve that pickle of a problem?
A week after typhoon Haiyan slammed into the Philippines, food, water, and medicine started pouring into the island nation, but they arrived with no designated way to reach the storm's neediest victims.
By Andrea Carter
Andrea Carter has more than 20 years experience as a human resources professional, including responsibility for developing supply chain talent. This column is based on a talk she gave at the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics. She is currently Vice President of Human Resources at a global apparel company.
People often frame professional development as a climb up the career ladder. However, in my experience, this analogy does not accurately reflect reality, particularly in a dynamic profession such as supply chain management.