January 25, 2021: The 13th annual MIT SCALE Supply Chain Research Expo took place January 19-22 as an online event, drawing an audience of thousands to explore research projects-in-progress by graduate-level supply chain management students from around the world.
Master's and Graduate Certificate program students from the six MIT Supply Chain and Logistics Excellence (SCALE) centers prepared posters and brief video summaries of their projects, which were made available on a purpose-built web site in lieu of the live poster session held in prior years as the culminating event in the annual SCALE Connect conference. SCALE Connect is a unique, cross-cultural component of the MIT SCALE programs that brings students from all six centers together for three weeks of workshops, seminars, industry speakers, intensive training (Python, Llamasoft, Tableau), and team-based challenges, including a "Shark Tank"-style product development and pitch challenge judged and sponsored by APICS Massachusetts Minuteman Chapter.
Moving to an online format allowed for expansion of Research Expo from a 3-hour evening event to nearly three days, and greatly increased its reach. Over 5600 site visitors from 110+ countries engaged heavily with the 87 project pages over the 55-hour review window, chocking up nearly 38,000 page views on the Research Expo project site, and adding over 1500 comments and 1700+ "likes" on project pages. As in prior years, event attendees were encouraged to vote for their top five projects, which helped inform final decisions by a panel of CTL researchers and members of The Procurement Lab (formerly ISM Greater Boston). The top project from each center, and one grand prize winning project, received prizes sponsored by the Procurement Lab in a closing event held live online on January 22.
Malaysia Institute for Supply Chain Innovation (MISI) students Evangelos Dimitriou and Masahiro Nomi were awarded the Outstanding Project Presentation grand prize for their project Waste In – Food Out. The team is working with a Malaysian food bank to develop a framework to assist food banks address the dual challenge of food waste and hunger.
In addition to the grand prize, judges selected five Best Center Project prizes:
- Freight and Warehousing: Tradeoffs in Supply Chain Sustainability
by Jorge Rodriguez and Abhiraj Narendra Nalawade
Master's candidates at the Zaragoza Logistics Center (ZLC) - Fulfillment Models Framework for eCommerce Companies
by Juan Manuel Bellido, Renata Cabrini Souza, and Dominique Gomez de la Luz
Graduate Certificate students at the Center for Latin American Logistics Innovation (CLI) - Garment Supply Chain Globalization
by Jian Wang
Master's candidate at the Ningbo Institute for Supply Chain Innovation (NISCI) - Eb2b Distribution Strategies in Fragmented Retail Environments
by Austin Iglesias Saragih and Syed Tanveer Ahmed
Master's students at the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics (CTL) - Last-Mile Logistics in Small Cities
by Valeria Tennina and Wirakan Inthanu
Master's candidates at the Luxembourg Center for Logistics & Supply Chain Management (LCL)
For more info on MIT SCALE Supply Chain Research Expo, SCALE Connect, or MIT SCALE supply chain education options, email scm-admissions@mit.edu