What Can Logistics Do For You?

 A couple of decades ago, visitors to the quiet city of Zaragoza, Spain, had no reason to think it would become a capital of world trade. But in 2000, the city opened Europe’s largest logistics hub, called PLAZA — and now Zaragoza is a key global shipping link, connecting manufacturers, suppliers and distributors, among others involved in international commerce.

“It is a positive feedback loop,” says Yossi Sheffi, the Elisha Gray II Professor of Engineering Systems at MIT and author of a new book on the growth of logistics hubs and their role in driving economic growth. In places such as Zaragoza, he says, there is “a self-reinforcing mechanism where the logistics cluster grows, providing lower costs and a higher level of service to the companies there, attracting even more companies, making the location even more attractive, providing more and more jobs.”    Read the full article here.