CTL Crossroads Conference held March 26, 2009 - CTL Researchers and Directors summarize the issues that were discussed during the day's focus sessions.
MIT CTL Crossroads Conference 2009 presentation by keynote speaker Dr. Andrew W. Lo, Harris & Harris Group Professor at Sloan School of Management, Director of Sloan School’s Laboratory of Financial Engineering, CTL Research Affiliate, and Alphasimplex Chairman and Chief Scientific Officer.
Supply Chain Frontiers issue #31. Read all articles in this issue. This year’s MIT CTL Master of Engineering in Logistics (MLOG) Research Fest will take place on May 20 to 21, 2009, on the MIT campus. The annual event gives MLOG graduating students the opportunity to present the results of...
Professor Chaman Jain emailed me the request last month that I dedicate this JBF column to the topic of forecasting the “un-forecastable.” Sounding like a contradiction in terms, I asked him what he meant. He stated that “all products are not equally forecastable” and that I should discuss “how to...
Supply Chain Frontiers issue #31. Read all articles in this issue. Little research has been done to extend our knowledge of commodity supply chains. Yet commodities are the starting point for many productive processes, both in developed and developing countries. A region’s level of advancement in the extraction, planning, distribution...
Supply Chain Frontiers issue #31. Read all articles in this issue. Forecasting demand has never been easy, but in an economic downturn the task brings new challenges because the ground rules that usually guide forecasters shift. In a recession, companies need to retune their approaches to reading markets. "If demand...
Supply Chain Frontiers issue #31. Read all articles in this issue. One of the many challenges in delivering medicines and health supplies in sub-Saharan Africa is the lack of timely information about quantities of product flowing through the supply chain. Researchers at the Zaragoza Logistics Center are working with the...
Supply Chain Frontiers issue #31. Read all articles in this issue. The cost of fuel is a major driver of supply chain efficiency, and the increasing volatility of fuel prices can undermine performance if not managed properly. Research at the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics’ (MIT CTL) FreightLab has...
Supply Chain Frontiers issue #31. Read all articles in this issue. The MIT Zaragoza International Logistics program at the Zaragoza Logistics Center, Spain, has received a grant of US$492,857 from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to study the most effective way to estimate the demand for global health products...
Articles Include: Four strategies for Taming Fuel price Volatility How to streamline gas-guzzling supply chains Making the right Call on supplier price hikes The real story behind those repricing requests Take a Fresh look at Water Another resource footprint is creeping up [Re]searching for answers: Choosing a supply Chain Consultant...
We are experiencing drastic economic times, and as the saying goes “drastic times call for drastic measures.” I don’t believe that supply chain planners should heed that conventional wisdom. They should still plan, rather than solely react, to an economy that is changing in very different ways.
Many organizations, from the Red Cross to pharmaceutical firms, depend on efficient supply chains to deliver goods, services, and people to parts of the world where they are desperately needed. Learn about how you could have a career in the growing field of humanitarian logistics. Hear from current MLOG and...
CTL researcher Dr. Mahender Singh reviews the key findings of the December 2, 2008 CTL symposium "New Perspectives on Managing Risk through the Supply Network" that took place at MIT. The symposium brought together researchers who are working on understanding and modeling supply network risk, and practitioners who are pioneering...
Dr. Edgar Blanco, Executive Director of CLI, notes that the financial crisis, the presidential election, and the possible increase in green regulation will profoundly affect supply chains in 2009.
Articles Include: Is Your Supply Chain Primed for Price Increases? How to swim in a rising tide of price hikes Wider Cost Horizons Reveal Hidden Savings Narrow-minded cost managers pay a price Four Steps to Network Resilience Genentech’s path through the risk-mitigation maze Making New Compliance Connections Trade compliance as...
Fall 2008’s dramatic increase in energy prices created major headaches for many supply chain managers, as no one could have predicted such an extreme rise in prices over such a short period of time. A Roundtable on the Impact of Energy Price Increases on the Global Supply Chain was convened...
This "Global Logistics & Supply Chain Strategies" article by Jarrod Goentzel describes how tapping into increasingly networked sensor data will give firms a significant competitive advantage
Supply chain managers are used to dealing with uncertainty, but the business environment has become more complex and less amenable to traditional approaches to preparing for the unexpected. For example, managers tend to use historical data to construct a singular view of the future when evaluating strategic possibilities. Such a...
Supply Chain Frontiers issue #30. Read all articles in this issue. Given the high degree of market uncertainty that companies now have to deal with, finding ways to mitigate and eliminate risk in supply networks is no longer a matter of choice. Risk management (RM) has become an integral part...
Another two companies, third-party logistics provider Transplace and leading fruit juice manufacturer Ocean Spray, have joined the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics’ (MIT CTL) Supply Chain Exchange program. The program has more than doubled its membership since MIT CTL embarked on an expansion effort some four years ago. The...
Supply Chain Frontiers issue #30. Read all articles in this issue. The 2009 Supply Chain Innovation and Leadership Series (SCILS), a month-long series of talks, site visits, and leadership workshops that happens every January, was the largest yet, reflecting the growing research and academic base of the MIT Center for...
Supply Chain Frontiers issue #30. Read all articles in this issue. Supply chain is adjusting to the extreme turbulence that has become the new norm in most markets, but how is it evolving to meet these challenges in a post-recession world? Perhaps towards a role as shock absorber, one that...
