Supply Chain Strategy Lab

Supply chain managers know from firsthand experience that a variety of events may trigger a revision of the supply chain strategy of an organization. Be it internal changes, such as a revision of the company’s business strategy or the launch of new products; or external changes, such as tighter regulations, disruptive technologies, or changes in the marketplace that disrupt the environment of the organization; or even the simple progression of a product along its life cycle: all these are events that require you to stop and reevaluate your existing supply chain strategy, to ensure it remains sound.

However, rethinking a supply chain strategy is not a trivial problem. Supply chains tend to be rather complex entities, and the act of thinking strategically about them, what we call supply chain strategizing, reflects this complexity. The absence of an established answer in the supply chain management literature regarding how to rethink the supply chain strategy of an organization further compounds what is already a daunting problem.

Between 2006 and 2016, a team of researchers at MIT’s Center for Transportation and Logistics (CTL) explored the problem of supply chain strategizing, as part the Supply Chain 2020 Project. After a decade of research in collaboration with world-class organizations, significant progress was made. But many questions remain open, and will continue to be explored by an offshoot of the SC2020 Project: the MIT Supply Chain Strategy Lab. The Lab is directed by Dr Roberto Perez-Franco, who served as Director of the Supply Chain 2020 Project between 2012 and 2016.