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Companies commonly use outsourcing as a means to lower costs or cover an area of supply chain expertise they currently lack. These relationships also bring opportunities to collaborate on ways to improve operational efficiency. A type of outsourcing that offers these benefits and takes collaborative relationships to a higher level finds an individual or team of professionals from the vendor embedded in the client company’s organization.

We've been talking all morning about the alleged terror plot which was reportedly being planned by a 26-year-old Ashland, MA man. According to the FBI, Rezwan Ferdaus wanted to take remote control planes, loaded with explosives and fly them into the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol. 

Jim Rice, from the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics, stopped by Fox 25's Beacon Hill studio to talk about it.

View the interview here.

UPS chairman and CEO Scott Davis explores free trade, the U.S. economy — and the truth behind those whiteboard ads.

While many Americans see today’s increasingly competitive global economy as contributing to the nation’s economic woes, UPS Chairman and CEO Scott Davis argued in a Tuesday talk at MIT that free trade ultimately benefits the U.S. economy and employment.

Is it possible to create a fuel surcharge program that is consistently fair to shippers and carriers? As we have seen over recent months, the cost of motor vehicle fuel is a national preoccupation. Perhaps this is one reason why rising prices at the pump, and mechanisms such as fuel surcharges that are designed to spread the pain between shippers and service providers equably, attract so much attention.

Hari Sreenivasan talks with Dr. Joseph F Coughlin, Director of the MIT AgeLab and the New England University Transportation Center about the car of the future. Coughlin says automobile technology will reflect a baby boomer generation that will live longer, are more technology savvy, and will demand to stay on the road longer than previous generations.

View the news segment here.

Robert Harris is so proud of the local products he uses in his catering that he adorned tables at a recent event with a map showing where the dinner ingredients were grown or made. It’s a great tool to demonstrate to our clients the care that we take in sourcing,’’ said Harris, chef and owner of Season to Taste Catering and The Table, a 10-seat restaurant, both in Cambridge. 

The CEO of the Panama Canal, Administrator/CEO Alberto Aleman Zubieta, announced today that the Panama Canal Authority will host its first-ever best practices Engineering and Infrastructure Congress.

It is a fair assumption that most supply chain professionals reading SCMR can quickly recount a harrowing tale, probably set at the end of the quarter, involving a key shipment that is about to miss its delivery deadline. Being at the core of the action in today's globalized businesses, the supply chain is full of exciting stories about how someone moved mountains to save the day... or not. Dr. Jarrod Goentzel from MIT shares more insights into using the power of narrative as an effective means of communicating critical messages across your organization.

When retailers, reps and sales managers gather next month at the Salt Palace for Outdoor Retailer Summer Market, talk will turn to products — how to market them, how to merchandise them, when to bring in back-up orders. No less important, however, will be the discussions among product designers, brand managers, suppliers and a small army of compliance auditors, contractors and consultants that manage the industry’s far-flung supply chain and will be focused on the questions of where, when and how to make product and maintain margins.

The Hartford launches Home for a Lifetime to encourage boomers to create living spaces that improve quality of life now and enable them to stay in their current homes as they age

One of the biggest issues boomers will confront in the years to come is planning for their future housing needs. According to a survey from The Hartford and the MIT AgeLab, 50 percent of boomers want to stay in their current home as they age, but most have no plans in place.

Yesterday, the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics held Crossroads 2011. The title of this year’s event reveals a lot: “Disruptive Innovations That Will Shape the Future of Supply Chains.” During the conference, leading MIT faculty examined what we can expect from supply chains in 10 or 20 years and the technologies and trends evolving today that will characterize tomorrow’s supply chains.

Read the full article here.

As the effects of the Sendai earthquake and tsunami ripple through the global economy, companies should shore up their supply chains to guard against disaster.

Read the full article here.

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.