Twenty-four supply chain students from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business traveled to the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) EXPO on Sept. 20-22, 2015, in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. The students are in the school’s Supply Chain Management Fellows program, which is fully funded by IANA, and the trip was part of the “Seminar in Supply Chain Management: An Executive Perspective” (BMGT 471) course.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST -- Port operators in Savannah, Ga. are racing to upgrade their facilities for the rising generation of big ships, which will have a new lane from Asia when the Panama Canal completes a 10-year widening project in 2016. Rivals are eyeing the same big ships in Charleston, S.C. And in Boston, Houston, Miami and many other ports along the Gulf and East Coasts — like the reality television series where many bachelors vie for the attention of the same bachelorette.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST -- U.S. companies that moved overseas to save costs are now considering bringing production home again, a survey of U.S.-based manufacturing executives shows.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST -- West Coast ports returned to full speed this week after a two-month labor dispute, leaving importers with a backlog of ships waiting to be unloaded.

When the largest earthquake to ever strike Japan rocked the country on March 11, it triggered a devastating tsunami leaving a wake of destruction and disaster at a nuclear power plant. It also shut down production for many major global manufacturers in Japan— in particular, those related to the auto and hi-tech industries.

In today’s world, when consumers expect that the click of a mouse will result in a package arriving at their doorsteps the next day, the pressure on supply chains to run efficiently is rapidly increasing. Supply chains are much more than trucks, trains, and boats. Supply chain management has become a truly holistic business discipline, an end-to-end coordination process. It seeks to bring demand for goods and services into balance with supply, through companies cooperating and working together as a business ecosystem to serve a common customer base.

When the largest earthquake to ever strike Japan rocked the country on March 11, it triggered a devastating tsunami leaving a wake of destruction and disaster at a nuclear power plant. It also shut down production for many major global manufacturers in Japan— in particular, those related to the auto and hi-tech industries.

College Park, Md. – February 24, 2011 – The nation’s $90 billion fleet of privately owned freight railway cars may be in jeopardy, according to a new report released today by the Supply Chain Management Center at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. The fleet is integral to the efficient movement of goods by rail and drastically reduces the environmental impact of shipping by eliminating the equivalent of 30 million truck shipments a year.

College Park, Md. – February 24, 2011 – The nation’s $90 billion fleet of privately owned freight railway cars may be in jeopardy, according to a new report released today by the Supply Chain Management Center at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. The fleet is integral to the efficient movement of goods by rail and drastically reduces the environmental impact of shipping by eliminating the equivalent of 30 million truck shipments a year.

Supply chain and logistics management is much more than getting manufactured goods from factories in China to shelves in suburban America in time for holiday shopping. For some supply chains, careful management can be a matter of life and death. Take, for example, the risks in moving fuel and supplies to troops in landlocked Afghanistan.