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UPDATE June 16, 2011: We are pleased to announce our keynote speaker, Alberto Alemán Zubieta, CEO of the Panama Canal Authority. Mr Zubieta will be speaking on the topic of the future of the Panama Canal and its impact on supply chain.

Leading academics from top institutions as well as global industry executives convene for inaugural event.

Professor Yossi Sheffi has been selected to receive the Salzberg Lifetime Award from the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University. The Salzberg Medallion has come to be recognized as one of the most prestigious awards in the field of transportation and supply chain management. In a letter to Sheffi on behalf of the Whitman School, Dr.

US and European companies have generally suffered only minor and short-lived disruption as a result of the March 11 earthquake in Japan, executives and analysts have said, showing the resilience of global supply chains. The catastrophe led to severe problems for many Japanese companies such as

In light of recent natural disasters, what skills are necessary to be prepared for, and recover from, a large-scale disruption in your supply chain? And who in the organization should take the lead? Dr. Bruce Arntzen and Jim Rice from CTL share their thoughts in the latest edition of Supply Chain Management Review.

Read the recent article for more details.

CNN's Deb Feyerick goes inside a lab, and an aging suit, to learn what it's like to lose mobility and flexibility. Watch Dr. Joe Coughlin from the MIT AgeLab discuss the Age Gain Now Empathy System (or AGNES), as well as other innovations that are being developed to help aging baby boomers live better.

See the full story here.

Getting a product from the manufacturer to your doorstep involves a complex chain of contracts, transportation, customs, inventory control, planning and demand forecasting, among other steps. When parts and demand for a product come from around the world, the supply chain becomes an intricate network.

Despite a lack of cohesive global practices on global carbon emission reduction, supply chain emissions continue to play a central role in corporate environmental initiatives.

Read the full article here.

This past Monday marked the one-month anniversary of the earthquake that struck Japan on March 11. As the country braces for aftershocks in the months to come, businesses around the world are steeling themselves against ripples in their global supply chains. In a recent community briefing, MIT experts spoke about the earthquake’s effects on supply chains for both commercial products and humanitarian aid.

April 12, 2011 (Cambridge, MA) - BASF, the world’s leading chemical company, today announced it is establishing a partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Transportation & Logistics (CTL). The company has become a Strategic Partner in the Center’s Supply Chain Exchange. The Supply Chain Exchange is an active community of companies that share a common goal to leverage cutting-edge research and knowledge to achieve supply chain-centric competitive advantages.

Mom and Dad always told you to look both ways before crossing the street, but if Grandma or Grandpa is driving down the road, you'd better look twice. A recently published study by researchers at Israel’s Ben Gurion University concluded drivers 65 and older are half as likely to notice pedestrians and other roadside hazards as drivers in the 21 to 40 age group. This is partly due to diminished peripheral vision.

Leadership in supply chain management has become a hot topic over the last few years. Many supply chain executives visit the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics (MIT CTL) for recruiting, executive education, and other reasons, and it is a rare meeting where the topic of leadership (or really the lack thereof) does not come up. The issue usually surfaces in side conversations where supply chain executives lament the shortage of individuals in their organizations who possess leadership skills, both “hard” and “soft.”

In this recent webcast, panelists discussed the effects of the recent earthquake and tsunami on trade between the U.S. and Japan, including how the disaster has affected global supply chains in the automobile, electronics and agriculture industries, and what shippers and logistics providers can do to keep distribution channels open. 

Panelists include: 

Mario Moreno 
Economist 
The Journal of Commerce/PIERS 

Jim Rice 
Deputy Director, Center for Transportation and Logistics 
MIT 

Researcers at MIT's AgeLab are trying to help people cope with the aging process by creating a suit that simulates old age. NBC’s Peter Alexander reports.

Chancellor Eric Grimson and CTL Director Yossi Sheffi officially launched the Malaysia Institute for Supply Chain Innovation today in Putrajaya, Malaysia. The prime minister of Malaysia was on hand to  welcome members of the ministry of higher education and the MIT delegation, and to unveil the plans for the center to the public.

Read more here.

MIT and Malaysia to Create World-Leading Supply Chain and Logistics Center

When entire towns are washed away or turned into debris, how do you begin cleaning up and re-building? That’s the question facing Japanese authorities, who have to start the cleanup amid uncertainty over the fate of the country’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex, disabled by last week’s earthquake and tsunami.

In an average year, 134 strong earthquakes (magnitude 6.0 to 6.9 on the Richter scale) and 17 major or great earthquakes (magnitude of 7.0 or greater) take place around the world. Although many strike remote and less-developed sections, some hit major centers of economic activity. When they hit, they expose the vulnerability of global supply chains.

Every day, logistics professionals learn on the job. The mix of challenges they face managing extended global supply chains ensures that. But, attaining a more formal education — through classroom work, workshops, or study courses — presents a different set of challenges.

The economic downturn has affected program enrollment at universities and logistics/supply chain management professional associations. In difficult times, companies cut travel and education budgets.

While the potential for a unified global policy on carbon footprint is still many years down the road there has been an accelerated convergence in voluntary corporate reporting of greenhouse gas emissions.

Read the full article below.

Edgar Blanco, along with team members Leo Bonanni and Ignacio Castro, won first place in the Web/IT track of the 100K Executive Summary Contest. Their venture, Sourcemap Inc., enables supply chain transparency. It is a cross-platform social networking system connecting suppliers at every level of a supply chain, so that they can share environmental information all the way to the retail customer.

Professor Yossi Sheffi was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Zaragoza and was presented with it by the Rector Manuel López on February 11th at the Paraninfo of the University. During his ceremony speech, Professor Sheffi presented his newest research (on logistics clusters), which was inspired by the success of PLAZA and the other logistics activities in Aragón.

Georgia Tech, MIT create Panama institutes aimed at helping improve human, infrastructure capacity in Latin America.

Georgia Tech’s Supply Chain and Logistics Institute in early September opened a Logistics Innovation and Research Center in Panama to help the government turn the Central American nation into a top-flight intercontinental trade hub.

Doctors, Officials and Family Members Try to Keep Elderly From Driving

Robert Hill and his daughter Cathy McArthur are in the midst of a classically fierce clash. Like many Americans with aging parents, McArthur doesn't think it's safe for her 84-year-old father, who has Parkinson's disease, to drive anymore. "We have a disagreement. If it doesn't go away, and I'm not able to drive, I will leave the country," said Hill. "I'll go to a country where they don't have driver's licenses. If I have to go to Nigeria, or some place like that, I'll go." 

If each freight shipment en route worldwide in a single day – by highway, rail, air, and sea – were a point of light, our planet would appear as an incredible snarl of illuminated string. The global economy is in constant motion as a rapidly evolving, changing, and inter-related system. Supporting this vast network of shipments is a highly sophisticated infrastructure directing and tracking the movement of goods via the Internet, underlying and enabling the new worldwide marketplace.

U.S. brands should begin developing dual supply chains to enhance fulfillment capabilities, lower their carbon footprint and prepare for changes in China, an expert in supply chain risk management from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) told an audience at Outdoor Retailer Winter Market last month. By 2030, specialty manufacturing will be back in the Western Hemisphere and maybe even in the United States,” predicted Dr. Bruce C. Arntzen, Senior Research Director for the Center for Transportation and Logistics at MIT.