MIT's Center for Transportation and Logistics launches Global SCALE Network

Network members will collaborate on research, conferences and other projects to improve global supply chains.

By Staff -- Modern Materials Handling, 3/27/2008

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Transportation and Logistics (MIT-CTL) announced today it has launched the MIT Global SCALE (Supply Chain and Logistics Excellence) Network, which it describes as an international alliance of leading research and education centers dedicated to the development of supply chain and logistics through innovation.

The Global SCALE Network comprises the MIT-CTL, the Zaragoza Logistics Center (ZLC) in Zaragoza, Spain, and the Center for Latin-American Logistics Innovation (CLI) in Bogota, Colombia. A main focus of this initiative, according to the MIT-CTL, is to allow faculty, researchers, students and affiliated companies from all three organizations to leverage their collective expertise and “collaborate on projects that will create supply chain and logistics innovations with global applications.”

According to MIT-CTL director Yossi Sheffi, the Global SCALE Network will provide a framework for its stakeholders to learn from one another.

“It will really create a network of many organizations,” says Sheffi. “Each center is connected to many other organizations. What we have now is three nodes of a network, and each one of them is connected to many other organizations.”

The MIT-CTL alone is connected to more than 50 academic, government and corporate entities throughout North America, Sheffi says. The ZLC has the same framework in Europe, and CLI is connected with dozens of similar organizations throughout Latin America. The network may also add centers in Asia and Africa, he says.

The Network’s first order of business, says Sheffi, is to create an alumni network around the world. The second is to create commercial value between the MIT-CTL, ZLC and CLI. “This is another opportunity to communicate and create on a commercial level through things like conferences and seminars to collaborate and share ideas,” he says.

This article was excerpted from a longer report by Logistics Management Senior Editor Jeff Berman.