Dr. Chris Caplice wants to make supply chain education freely available to anyone, anywhere. More than 150,000 people from 190 countries have taken him up on that offer so far.
Before Chris Caplice, executive director of the Center for Transportation and Logistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), got involved in supply chain management, he was a civil engineer. He's still passionate about identifying problems and solving them with an engineer's quantitative approach. Today, though, he's applying his considerable analytical skills to a new area: not just what is taught in supply chain management (SCM), but how it is taught.
As a leading proponent of online education in SCM, Caplice has worked with colleagues to design, implement, and teach a variety of online courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. The aim: to use technology to make high-quality supply chain education available to anyone, anywhere in the world. Through the new MicroMasters in Supply Chain Management program he leads, this vision is expanding beyond MIT to include a variety of programs at more than a dozen other universities.
For his leadership in making educational opportunities in supply chain management more widely available, Caplice received the 2016 Distinguished Service Award (DSA) from the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals. The organization's highest honor is given to an individual for significant achievements in the logistics and supply chain management professions.
Caplice recently spoke about innovations in education with Supply Chain Quarterly Editor Toby Gooley.
Name: Chris Caplice, Ph.D. Title: Executive director, Center for Transportation and Logistics (CTL); founder, MIT FreightLab; chief scientist, Chainalytics Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Education: Doctorate in transportation and logistics systems, MIT; Master of Science in civil engineering, University of Texas at Austin; Bachelor of Science in civil engineering, Virginia Military Institute Recognitions: 2016 CSCMP Distinguished Service Award and 1996 Doctoral Dissertation Award; 2016 MIT Silver Family Research Fellow Previous Experience: Taught at Virginia Military Institute; senior management positions, Logistics.com, SABRE, and PTCG; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers CSCMP Member: Since 1994
What are your responsibilities at the Center for Transportation and Logistics? How does CTL fit with other programs at MIT?
CTL is an interdepartmental center that focuses on all issues related to supply chain management, logistics, and freight transportation. We do three things: education, business partnerships/corporate outreach, and research. ... We have a great team of researchers and faculty, so my main responsibility is just ensuring that all the programs work together!
You may have noticed that there is no Department of Supply Chain Management here. One of the benefits of CTL being independent and interdepartmental is that we're able to bring different disciplines to bear on the field. That frequently includes the Media Lab, the School of Engineering, the Sloan School of Management, urban planning, and others. The fun thing is that we can tie so many different disciplines together.
Are you working on any major research projects?
In the past couple of years I've mostly focused on developing online education, but there are three other projects that I've been involved with. We just finished a project called "Voice of the Machine" with Drs. Francisco Jauffred and Daniel Steeneck. With the advent of the Internet of Things, we can now get signals such as diagnostic tests from equipment in the field. We worked with a company called OnProcess Technology to gather signals from machines' self-diagnostic tests and see if we can do anything proactively with them. We found that while the ability to predict one machine failing is weak, over a long period, and in the aggregate, the machines give us good signals we can use to allocate service-parts inventory and potentially reduce safety stock by up to 10 percent.
A second project was with a large restaurant chain. Every restaurant has restrictions on how much it can store in the backroom. If you devote more square feet there, then you don't have that square footage out in front. We wanted to know how that could affect service levels. As demand increases, do we have to increase the size of the storeroom, or can we make it more efficient? How do pack size and delivery frequency affect service levels? We're trying to determine the optimal order-stocking frequency. This is becoming more relevant for retailers, because with omnichannel the backroom is now serving multiple purposes.
A third project concerns better synchronization of transportation flow with inventory flow. Suppose I have different transportation options, and each has different costs, transit time, lead time, and capacity. How do I select the best mode—ahead of time, in my contracting—to best handle varying demand? Tied to that is inventory: some stock-keeping units (SKUs) are predictable, while others are not. Is there a way to synchronize both of these flows, and can I allocate the right SKUs to the right mode in advance?
CSCMP described you as leading the charge in "democratizing supply chain knowledge." What does that mean to you, and why is it important?
Higher education is facing a major decision. The way we teach in graduate school hasn't changed in 100 years: we lecture to a room of students; assign them a problem set, which they turn in two weeks later; and then we grade it and give it back to them two weeks after that. So after a month they get feedback. Does that still work today?
We're pushing ourselves to find out if we can deliver high-quality, graduate-level education that can be accessed by anyone across the world. For example, through edX [an online learning system founded by Harvard University and MIT] we want to educate the world for free. People should be able to get the knowledge they need—that's rule number one. Sometimes people want certification that they have mastered certain knowledge and skills. So, our second rule is to credentialize at cost. This cannot be done for free since it involves a lot more effort and work. Our third guiding rule is to be able to work with companies to customize the courses to fit their specific needs. We're finding that companies don't always want courses exactly as we created them; they choose modules and blend them to meet their own needs.
How does the new MITx MicroMasters credential in Supply Chain Management program work?
Over the past two years, more than 150,000 unique people from 190 countries have registered for at least one online course in supply chain management. In addition to demand for these courses there was tremendous demand for a formal MIT degree. So, in October of last year MIT President Rafael Reif announced the launch of the MicroMasters Credential, with our supply chain program being the very first. To earn the credential, students have to successfully complete a series of five courses and pass a final, proctored exam. If they are accepted to MIT, we will award them approximately one semester of credit. This is the first time MIT has awarded credits for online courses. It's online, but it still has the rigor and depth of graduate-level work. Also, through edX we are now offering about 20 different MicroMasters courses in a variety of subjects across about a dozen universities.
One thing we've learned is that there's no one best way to teach everything. There is a whole continuum, a portfolio of teaching methods, and you have to match that to the content and to the audience. For instance, we found that an analytical method like how to set inventory levels is best taught not necessarily in a lecture hall but via video. Students can move at their own pace; they can stop, start, and review as often as they need to. However, other things are best taught face-to-face, like case studies using the Socratic method, where students debate among themselves. Educators are realizing that for online teaching as well as in-residence graduate and executive education, it's more effective to do the prep work first, and then have face-to-face learning and discussion.
Launching the MicroMasters Credential required you to champion massive online open courses (MOOCs). How successful have they been?
The number of of registrations for an online course can be huge, and the number of people who are seriously doing something with it much smaller. After all, there is no charge, so the "cost" of registering is just a click. The number of registrants who are paid, verified students who want to be credentialed is averaging 12 percent for our courses. Those who are paid and verified tend to score higher on average, and by orders of magnitude are more likely to complete the course. We've awarded over 11,000 course certificates to almost 7,000 individual students over the past two years. To put this number in scale, I would have to teach for almost 100 years to reach this many students using traditional methods!
Business software vendor Cleo has acquired DataTrans Solutions, a cloud-based procurement automation and EDI solutions provider, saying the move enhances Cleo’s supply chain orchestration with new procurement automation capabilities.
According to Chicago-based Cleo, the acquisition comes as companies increasingly look to digitalize their procurement processes, instead of relying on inefficient and expensive manual approaches.
By buying Texas-based DataTrans, Cleo said it will gain an expanded ability to help businesses streamline procurement, optimize working capital, and strengthen supplier relationships. Specifically, by integrating DTS’s procurement automation capabilities, Cleo will be able to provide businesses with solutions including: a supplier EDI & testing portal; web EDI & PDF digitization; and supplier scorecarding & performance tracking.
“Cleo’s vision is to deliver true supply chain orchestration by bridging the gap between planning and execution,” Cleo President and CEO Mahesh Rajasekharan said in a release. “With DTS’s technology embedded into CIC, we’re empowering procurement teams to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and minimize supply chain risks—all through automation.”
And many of them will have a budget to do it, since 51% of supply chain professionals with existing innovation budgets saw an increase earmarked for 2025, suggesting an even greater emphasis on investing in new technologies to meet rising demand, Kenco said in its “2025 Supply Chain Innovation” survey.
One of the biggest targets for innovation spending will artificial intelligence, as supply chain leaders look to use AI to automate time-consuming tasks. The survey showed that 41% are making AI a key part of their innovation strategy, with a third already leveraging it for data visibility, 29% for quality control, and 26% for labor optimization.
Still, lingering concerns around how to effectively and securely implement AI are leading some companies to sidestep the technology altogether. More than a third – 35% – said they’re largely prevented from using AI because of company policy, leaving an opportunity to streamline operations on the table.
“Avoiding AI entirely is no longer an option. Implementing it strategically can give supply chain-focused companies a serious competitive advantage,” Kristi Montgomery, Vice President, Innovation, Research & Development at Kenco, said in a release. “Now’s the time for organizations to explore and experiment with the tech, especially for automating data-heavy operations such as demand planning, shipping, and receiving to optimize your operations and unlock true efficiency.”
Among the survey’s other top findings:
there was essentially three-way tie for which physical automation tools professionals are looking to adopt in the coming year: robotics (43%), sensors and automatic identification (40%), and 3D printing (40%).
professionals tend to select a proven developer for providing supply chain innovation, but many also pick start-ups. Forty-five percent said they work with a mix of new and established developers, compared to 39% who work with established technologies only.
there’s room to grow in partnering with 3PLs for innovation: only 13% said their 3PL identified a need for innovation, and just 8% partnered with a 3PL to bring a technology to life.
Even as a last-minute deal today appeared to delay the tariff on Mexico, that deal is set to last only one month, and tariffs on the other two countries are still set to go into effect at midnight tonight.
Once new U.S. tariffs go into effect, those other countries are widely expected to respond with retaliatory tariffs of their own on U.S. exports, that would reduce demand for U.S. and manufacturing goods. In the context of that unpredictable business landscape, many U.S. business groups have been pressuring the White House to pull back from the new policy.
Here is a sampling of the reaction to the tariff plan by the U.S. business community:
American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA)
“Tariffs are taxes,” AAPA President and CEO Cary Davis said in a release. “Though the port industry supports President Trump’s efforts to combat the flow of illicit drugs, tariffs will slow down our supply chains, tax American businesses, and increase costs for hard-working citizens. Instead, we call on the Administration and Congress to thoughtfully pursue alternatives to achieving these policy goals and exempt items critical to national security from tariffs, including port equipment.”
Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA)
“We understand the president is working toward an agreement. The leaders of all four nations should come together and work to reach a deal before Feb. 4 because enacting broad-based tariffs will be disruptive to the U.S. economy,” Michael Hanson, RILA’s Senior Executive Vice President of Public Affairs, said in a release. “The American people are counting on President Trump to grow the U.S. economy and lower inflation, and broad-based tariffs will put that at risk.”
National Association of Manufacturers (NAM)
“Manufacturers understand the need to deal with any sort of crisis that involves illicit drugs crossing our border, and we hope the three countries can come together quickly to confront this challenge,” NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons said in a release. “However, with essential tax reforms left on the cutting room floor by the last Congress and the Biden administration, manufacturers are already facing mounting cost pressures. A 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico threatens to upend the very supply chains that have made U.S. manufacturing more competitive globally. The ripple effects will be severe, particularly for small and medium-sized manufacturers that lack the flexibility and capital to rapidly find alternative suppliers or absorb skyrocketing energy costs. These businesses—employing millions of American workers—will face significant disruptions. Ultimately, manufacturers will bear the brunt of these tariffs, undermining our ability to sell our products at a competitive price and putting American jobs at risk.”
American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA)
“Widespread tariff actions on Mexico, Canada, and China announced this evening will inject massive costs into our inflation-weary economy while exposing us to a damaging tit-for-tat tariff war that will harm key export markets that U.S. farmers and manufacturers need,” Steve Lamar, AAFA’s president and CEO, said in a release. “We should be forging deeper collaboration with our free trade agreement partners, not taking actions that call into question the very foundation of that partnership."
Healthcare Distribution Alliance (HDA)
“We are concerned that placing tariffs on generic drug products produced outside the U.S. will put additional pressure on an industry that is already experiencing financial distress. Distributors and generic manufacturers and cannot absorb the rising costs of broad tariffs. It is worth noting that distributors operate on low profit margins — 0.3 percent. As a result, the U.S. will likely see new and worsened shortages of important medications and the costs will be passed down to payers and patients, including those in the Medicare and Medicaid programs,” the group said in a statement.
National Retail Federation (NRF)
“We support the Trump administration’s goal of strengthening trade relationships and creating fair and favorable terms for America,” NRF Executive Vice President of Government Relations David French said in a release. “But imposing steep tariffs on three of our closest trading partners is a serious step. We strongly encourage all parties to continue negotiating to find solutions that will strengthen trade relationships and avoid shifting the costs of shared policy failures onto the backs of American families, workers and small businesses.”
In a statement, DCA airport officials said they would open the facility again today for flights after planes were grounded for more than 12 hours. “Reagan National airport will resume flight operations at 11:00am. All airport roads and terminals are open. Some flights have been delayed or cancelled, so passengers are encouraged to check with their airline for specific flight information,” the facility said in a social media post.
An investigation into the cause of the crash is now underway, being led by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and assisted by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Neither agency had released additional information yet today.
First responders say nearly 70 people may have died in the crash, including all 60 passengers and four crew on the American Airlines flight and three soldiers in the military helicopter after both aircraft appeared to explode upon impact and fall into the Potomac River.
Editor's note:This article was revised on February 3.
GE Vernova today said it plans to invest nearly $600 million in its U.S. factories and facilities over the next two years to support its energy businesses, which make equipment for generating electricity through gas power, grid, nuclear, and onshore wind.
The company was created just nine months ago as a spin-off from its parent corporation, General Electric, with a mission to meet surging global electricity demands. That move created a company with some 18,000 workers across 50 states in the U.S., with 18 U.S. manufacturing facilities and its global headquarters located in Massachusetts. GE Vernova’s technology helps produce approximately 25% of the world’s energy and is currently deployed in more than 140 countries.
The new investments – expected to create approximately 1,500 new U.S. jobs – will help drive U.S. energy affordability, national security, and competitiveness, and enable the American manufacturing footprint needed to support expanding global exports, the company said. They follow more than $167 million in funding in 2024 across a range of GE Vernova sites, helping create more than 1,120 jobs. And following a forecast that worldwide energy needs are on pace to double, GE Vernova is also planning a $9 billion cumulative global capex and R&D investment plan through 2028.
The new investments include:
almost $300 million in support of its Gas Power business and build-out of capacity to make heavy duty gas turbines, for facilities in Greenville, SC, Schenectady, NY, Parsippany, NJ, and Bangor, ME.
nearly $20 million to expand capacity at its Grid Solutions facilities in Charleroi, PA, which manufactures switchgear, and Clearwater, FL, which produces capacitors and instrument transformers.
more than $50 million to enhance safety, quality and productivity at its Wilmington, NC-based GE Hitachi nuclear business and to launch its next generation nuclear fuel design.
nearly $100 million in its manufacturing facilities at U.S. onshore wind factories in Pensacola, FL, Schenectady, NY and Grand Forks, ND, and its remanufacturing facilities in Amarillo, TX.
more than $10 million in its Pittsburgh, PA facility to expand capabilities across its Electrification segment, adding U.S. manufacturing capacity to support the U.S. grid, and demand for solar and energy storage
almost $100 million for its energy innovation research hub, the Advanced Research Center in Niskayuna, NY, to strengthen the center’s electrification and carbon efforts, enable continued recruitment of top-tier talent, and push forward innovative technologies, including $15 million for Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) work.
“These investments represent our serious commitment and responsibility as the leading energy manufacturer in the United States to help meet America’s and the world’s accelerating energy demand,” Scott Strazik, CEO of GE Vernova, said in a release. “These strategic investments and the jobs they create aim to both help our customers meet the doubling of demand and accelerate American innovation and technology development to boost the country’s energy security and global competitiveness.”