Marketing & Supply Chain Management
continues its top research reputation

The Marketing and Supply Chain Management (MSC) department is one of the most highly-ranked programs of its kind in the world, maintaining strong national rankings year after year. The department's work in teaching and research was recently ranked first by the Journal of Operations Management and the Journal of Business Logistics.

Marketing and Supply Chain Management faculty have produced some major research this year. A study of supply continuity planning processes was recently completed by Assistant Professor George Zsidisin, Associate Professor Gary Ragatz and Professor Steven Melnyk. This study, funded in part by the AT&T Foundation, investigated the principles, practices and systems intended to manage and reduce supply side disruptions. Details of the research findings can be found on the Web at http://www.bus.msu.edu/news-archive/6.03.2004.html, as well as in Supply Chain Management Review, the International Journal of Production Research, and Inside Supply Management. A followup study, funded in part by IBM, is currently underway.

Unique centers, collaborations

The department's Last Mile Supply Chain Center focuses on the combination of information technology for remote ordering, proactive marketing to develop new markets and cutting edge supply chain techniques to fulfill and deliver orders effectively. It's funded by Albertsons, Freshdirect, Grocery Gateway and Netgrocer, Kellogg's, Office Depot, Newgistics, FedEx and Descartes Systems Group. Associate Professor Kenneth Boyer is the center director, and Assistant Professor David A. Griffith, Associate Professor Glenn Omura and Associate Professor G. Tomas Hult are lead researchers. The center hosted the first annual Last Mile Seminar in 2005.

Broad School Supply Chain faculty, including The John H. McConnell Chair in Business Administration David Closs and Assistant Professor Dan Lynch, and faculty from the Michigan State University Food Safety department recently joined the University of Minnesota to establish the National Center for Food Protection and Defense. Using interviews with managers involved in enhancing food supply chain security and statistical analysis of the relative security performance, Michigan State's collaborating researchers will help to identify the best use of resources to enhance supply chain security, and then provide direction for managers involved in the food chain.

• David A. Griffith