Supply Chain Frontiers issue #60
What innovations will be impacting supply chains five years from now? We don’t have a crystal ball that will tell us for sure, but we do have an event that gives a head start on anticipating the future. It’s called Crossroads, and this year it takes place on March 23, at the MIT campus, Cambridge, MA
Here is an example of how the MIT CTL Crossroads conference gives attendees a glimpse of the future.
In June, 2011, at MIT CTL’s Crossroads 2011 conference, MIT professor Gerbrand Ceder described a revolutionary materials science project that had major implications for supply chains. Ceder and his team was developing a massive database of every known inorganic compound. The database, in combination with online analytical tools, would enable researchers to discover new materials and greatly reduce the time taken to commercialize them.
Since then the Materials Science project has indeed made some important discoveries, such as new types of transparent conducting materials. Importantly from a supply chain perspective, companies use the database to find better performing materials they can use in their products. As a result, they have been able to speed up the sourcing process and review a wider range of materials.
For example, as the online publication MIT News reported in February, 2014, Procter & Gamble used the database to screen all possible materials for a new electrode for the company’s Duracell batteries. Ceder’s team was able to screen 130,000 real or hypothetical compounds, devising a list of 200 that met the desired criteria and that had the potential to perform better than the materials currently used by P&G. Another company used the system to find a new material to be used in computer memory chips.
Today, the database has tens of thousands of compounds and is being used in a wide variety of applications, such as a project to find more efficient solar cells.
The Crossroads 2016 agenda includes a session on autonomous vehicles, a talk on emerging solutions to last mile visibility issues, and a session on the security of global food supply chains. Attendees will also learn about a supply chain educational initiative that could transform professional education by bridging online and traditional models.
Seats are still available for the Crossroads 2016 conference, but those interested in attending should sign up as soon as possible. Register for Crossroads 2016 here.