3 February, 2022

Graduate supply chain management students from all over the world worked in randomly-assigned teams last month on two supply-chain challenges held as part of the 2022 SCALE Connect academic conference. SCALE Connect brings students from the global SCALE centers together at the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics (MIT CTL) in Cambridge for three intense weeks of seminars, industry speakers, career development workshops, advanced training on technical topics and products, in addition to the team-based challenges. The program provides our students with unique opportunities to learn, network, and collaborate with fellow supply chain and logistics students from all over the world.

For the SCALE Supply Chain Challenge, student teams drew upon their knowledge of programming languages, machine learning, and visual analytics tools to address real-world problem statements put forward by sponsoring companies including BMW, StockX, O9 Solutions (prize sponsor), Heyday, ARS Traffic & Transport Technology, and others. Read more about the two-week business case competition on the CTL website, and see photos of the winning teams on Facebook.

SCALE Supply Chain Challenge Winning Teams

1st Place (for work addressing a challenge from StockX):
Kubra Bayik (LCL), Nina Antilla (ZLC), Meiling Chen (MIT CTL), Rachael Clark (MIT CTL), and Nicholas Winters (MIT CTL),

2nd Place (for work on addressing challenge from ARS T&TT):
Emre Kulluk (MIT CTL), Jessica Xiong (MIT CTL), Ly Vo Thi Ngoc (LCL), Pamela Quintanilla (ZLC), Sushanth Purandhar (ZLC), and SK Ker (MIT CTL)

3rd Place (for work addressing challenge from a large grocery retailer):
Devender Singh (ZLC), Juan Preiti (GCLOG), Taylor Peterson (MIT CTL), Himanshu Halbe (MIT) CTL, and Tony Kook (MIT CTL)

The second team-based competition was the annual SCALE Connect "shark-tank"-style challenge, where student teams (again, randomly assigned) come up with products/services to address a specific problem on the UN Global Issues list. Teams outline a problem statement and develop a product/initiative that uses supply chain frameworks and methodologies to address the problem. Teams then pitch their solutions to a panel of "sharks" – judges from the ASCM Massachusetts Minuteman Chapter, Scoutbee, and MIT CTL – to compete for prizes sponsored by ASCM Mass. Minuteman. Read more on the CTL website.

SCALE Connect Shark Tank Challenge Winning Teams 

1st Place (for their solution: KAMP):
Samuel Chin (MIT CTL), Debra Lee (MIT CTL), Shahidul Hoque (MIT CTL), David Montemurri (GCLOG), Vedasree Ramireddy (LCL)

2nd Place: (for their solution: H2->gO):
Pamela Quintanilla (ZLC), Jason Maen (MIT CTL), Rachel Clark (MIT CTL), Jinwoo Je (MIT CTL), Jesus Guajardo (MIT CTL), and Karoline Rueckerl (MIT CTL)

3rd Place (for their solution: BoxIT):
Lauren Fellin (MIT CTL), Ankita Arora, Daniela Muñoz (GCLOG), Varun Shekhar (MIT CTL), Rajiv Saini (LCL)

Congratulations to all!