Emerging Technology and Best Practices Seminar Series

Production and Supply Chain Logistics in the Global Communications Economy

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November 15, 2002

The speed with which raw materials and input components are transformed to final products and delivered to intermediate or final users has been a key determinant of success in the global economy. Lean and agile manufacturing practices, transportation and warehouse logistics, information technology assisted conversion of data to knowledge and expeditious communication of this knowledge, have made a huge difference, leading us to a global economy where goods move at an ever increasing speed. The tragedy of September 11, slowed down key sectors of the economy – electronics quite notably amongst others – to the speed of half a decade ago, highlighting the sensitivities of the global economy and the need for new more stable and more robust business practices. Challenges that arise from these needs can be addressed by a hybrid of "simple is better" approaches introduced by the Japanese in the eighties, and the "systems approach" pioneered by United States Information and communications technology and logistics. The level of complexity and uncertainty of market swings, cross-nationally correlated business cycles, and global disturbances requires global macroeconomic and geopolitical coordination at the level of government. However, at the level of industry practitioners, it also requires a better understanding of the stochastic dynamics of our global economy; it requires extraction of knowledge from the labyrinth of data compiled by our enterprise information systems and intelligent use of this knowledge.

The seminar will address:

(i) The observed impact of the adoption of recent Information and Enterprise Integration technologies such as web information portals and logistics.

(ii) The expected impact of advances that are around the corner such as next generation wireless telephony and Complex System Management research results.

Topics for the three sessions are:

Centralized and Distributed Tools for the Coordination of
Manufacturing Production and Distribution Supply Chains:
What is the potential contribution of state of the art Enterprise Requirements Planning (ERP) Software? Is quantitative decentralized production floor analysis complementary to ERP Software?

Supplier Relations and Operations
Support Services in the Communication Era:
Web portals for enhanced customer interaction, and the role of next generation wireless communication capabilities in improving efficiency in the operations arena.

Military and New Product Supply Chains:
Are there research achievements in the logistics of complex stochastic supply chains that may benefit military campaigns with high reliability and effective quality of service provision today? Can civilian supply chain productivity improve from the adoption of similar approaches tomorrow?

Boston University Manufacturing Engineering Emerging Technology and Best Practices Seminar Fall 2002 Seminar Agenda
8:00	Continental Breakfast
8:30	Welcome
TOPIC 1: Centralized and Distributed Tools for the Coordination of Manufacturing Production and Distribution Supply Chains
8:40	Transportation and Distribution Supply Chains: Monitoring the Last 50 Mile Fulfillment Process Gene Florintsev Vice President, Engineering TransDecisions, Inc.
9:30	Quick Response Manufacturing: A Competitive Strategy for Low Volume and Custom-Engineered Products Professor Rajan Suri Director, Center for Quick Response Manufacturing, University of Wisconsin-Madison
10:30	Networking Break
11:00	Compute and Control: Analysis of Different Value Chains at IBMe Customer-Supplier Chain Yingdong Lu Research Staff Member, Department of Mathematical Science IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
12:15	Lunch
TOPIC 2: Supplier Relations and Operations Support Services in the Communication Era
1:00	Disintermediation: Portals and the Web Make Powerful Allies for Value Creation Along the Aerospace Customer-Supplier Chain Alden B. Davis Wizard of "E", Strategic Planning, UTC: Pratt & Whitney Corporation
1:50	Next Generation Wireless Telephony and Operational Efficiency of Field Operations Professor John Henderson Chair, Management Information Systems Department, Boston University Graduate School of Management
2:40	Networking Break
TOPIC 3: Military and New Product Supply Chains
3:00	Optimal Configuration Strategies for New Product Supply Chains Assistant Professor Sean Willems Operations Management Department, Boston University Graduate School of Management and Chief Scientist, Optiant, Inc.
4:00	Military Supply Chains: A 10,000 Foot View of Methodological and Algorithmic Challenges Professor Yannis Paschalidis Department of Manufacturing Engineering, Boston University College of Engineering
5:00	Close

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