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Truckload cancellations by carriers are causing disruptions in the trucking industry operations. By extrapolating the findings from the 3PL’s data studied in this research to the whole trucking industry, it is estimated that 32 million cancellations occur every year. These cancellations result in around $4.6 billion extra cost. If these...
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Industrial digitalization concepts such as Industry 4.0 or Smart Manufacturing are currently of great interest in academia and among industrial players. These concepts are expected to boost companies’ manufacturing supply chain performance factors such as availability and productivity. For instance, greater availability of assets on the shop floor makes the...
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Climate catastrophes (i.e. tornadoes, hail, hurricanes, etc.) have a significant economic and operational impact on the operation of call centers. It was found that catastrophe events such as hurricanes critically impact the operation of the affected location for a period of two months after the hurricane has occurred. A sudden...
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The transportation sector is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions; hence, it is desirable to lower carbon emissions from this sector, especially with the expected growth in transportation needs from e-commerce. Since a particular vehicle type may exhibit different emissions characteristics when operating in different regions, determining which vehicle...
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In today's world, the e-commerce market is growing rapidly and becoming more competitive. While any players in the industry are attempting to get their share of pie, consumers are demanding faster deliveries and free shipping. This market growth and change in consumer behavior provides an exciting opportunity for companies to...
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Companies trading cementitious materials face an increasingly volatile economic environment and continuous challenges to ensure the availability of strategic raw materials. In this context, the ability to globally source slag represents a competitive advantage for cement companies because of the limited availability of the material, its importance in the cement...
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A large majority of companies in Latin America are micro or small firms, making them an important part of the region’s economy. These firms are a relevant source of jobs, but a lack of managerial skills and resources threatens their survival. In this study, we analyze a set of supply...
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Supply chain network optimization is presently performed by solving a cost minimization problem, without regard for potential revenue generation through endogenous demand. This capstone report analyzes several incarnations of endogenous demand expression and factors these incarnations in network design optimization by modelling the problem with a profit maximization objective. Under...
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Millions of mom-and-pop stores represent 40-70% of the market share of Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies. Many of these stores are located in megacities in developing countries, cities over 10 million people, where characteristics such as traffic congestion and a dense population make the last-mile delivery process very complex. Therefore...
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With the increasingly competitive landscape of e-commerce and omni-channel delivery execution, the last mile has emerged as a critical source of opportunity for cost efficiency. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have historically been utilized for military applications, but they are quickly gaining traction as a viable option for driving improvements in...
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Ongoing humanitarian operations can suffer from the lack of medical item availability. The central problem thus becomes how to ensure the right item in the right place at the right time while maintaining appropriate costs. By means of a case study, this research grouped items by various item characteristics and...
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According to a report by A. T. Kearney, in 2016 the US business spent $1,392.64B on logistics costs. 90% of transportation spending is procured in the form of Long Term Contracts. A Long Term Contract drives long procurement cycles that can last over 6 months, which results in significant financial...
Thesis/Capstone
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Excess inventory is prevalent in both the armed forces and defense companies; it takes up space and resources that could be used elsewhere. This thesis proposes a method to reduce the excess inventory and associated costs, while maintaining instant part availability, despite design changes which alter the number of parts...
Paper
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This document supports companies that are interested in setting science-based targets for transport greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions according to the new, refined pathways in the Sector Decarbonization Approach (SDA) Transport tool. It builds on the existing manual and guidance of the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) for setting science-based targets...
Newsletter
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The electronic newsletter of the MIT Global SCALE Network Issue #66 Subscribe to Frontiers THE LEADING EDGE Narrowing the Self-Drive Trust Divide Professor Yossi Sheffi, Director, MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics, argues that while trust in autonomous vehicles appears to be slowly building, the technology still has some difficult...
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Are we learning to trust self-drive vehicle technology? In January 2018 the AAA released the findings of its latest annual survey of driver attitudes in the US. Sixty-three percent of American drivers report feeling afraid to ride in a fully self-driving vehicle. This is a significant portion of the country’s...
Newsletter
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The fast pace of technological change can make it difficult for companies to decide which new ideas they should implement. A Graduate Certificate in Logistics and Supply Chain Management (GCLOG) capstone research project* identified technologies that could benefit three companies in Brazil and evaluated the pros and cons of adopting...
Newsletter
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A hyper-connected network of logistics clusters could play a key role in achieving the European Union’s goal of creating a sustainable, more efficient freight transportation system. An EU-backed research initiative called Clusters 2.0 is laying the groundwork for such a network by developing ways to link freight hubs via the...
Newsletter
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Supply chain and operations executives are increasingly involved in making decisions about the company’s supply chain strategy that have long-term implications. But how do these executives, whose job responsibilities involve mainly short-term decision-making, think about the long-term? Researchers at the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics (MIT CTL) asked this...
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New advances in artificial intelligence (AI), the impact of self-drive vehicle technology and its evolution over the coming years, the policy and legal ramifications of autonomous vehicles, and conversational commerce are some of the developments that supply chain professionals will learn about at Crossroads 2018, April 17, 2018, at the...
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Weichun Chen, a Ph.D. student from College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, China, who won first prize in China’s National Postgraduate Mathematical Contest in Modelling in 2014, is currently visiting the Luxembourg Center for Logistics and Supply Chain Management (LCL). Weichun’s research focuses on green supply chains, remanufacturing, dynamic...
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On Wednesday, January 24, 2018, the MIT SCALE Global Network hosted the 10th Annual SCALE Connect Conference Research Expo. Over 200 supply chain master's students presented digital posters of their research projects to more than 200 visiting supply chain professionals and influencers. On display were presentations from the MIT SCALE...
Newsletter
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The Malaysia Institute for Supply Chain Innovation (MISI) completed the first joint program under an MoU signed with SME Corp: an executive education program on supply chain management on January 22, 2018, at MISI’s Shah Alam campus. The MoU was signed in 2017. The new program was led by Dr...
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List of presentations cited in Supply Chain Frontiers #66 Back to Supply Chain Frontiers issue #66 CTL Yossi Sheffi “Logistics Clusters: Formation, Growth and Impact,” Cone Multimodal Conference, Recife, Brazil, March 12. “The Environmental Balance,” Intermodal Expo, Sao Paulo, Brazil, March 13. “Risk and Resilience Management for Competitive Advantage,” BASF...
Newsletter
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A list of publications produced this quarter by the MIT Global SCALE Network Back to Supply Chain Frontiers issue #66 CTL Yossi Sheffi “Narrowing the Self-Drive Truck Divide,” Linkedin Influencer blog post, February 15 “Balancing Green: When to Embrace Sustainability in a Business (and When Not To),” book published by...