Trends and research directions in supply chain & logistics engineering

We look at current forces affecting supply chain design and global logistics, including fuel and labor costs; mode shifts; improvements in efficiency within each mode; currency dynamics; risk; labor shortages, laws, and wages in China; international freight transport network congestion; capacity reduction; product & package design to reduce weight and cube; and information technology applications. We then focus on interesting research directions linked to the next level of supply chain control productivity - controlling supply chains in real-time, based on real-time data - and discuss the value of information and how to extract this value effectively.