Transportation & Logistics Management

In today's global supply chains, manufactured products often travel across multiple countries and multiple states, using multiple modes of transportation, before reaching final customers. Along the way, these products are processed at a variety of inventory transfer points, and reconfigured and combined with other products with the goal of arriving intact at the right place and right time. Effectively managing these flows requires understanding the underlying economics of weight, volume, distance, and velocity. It requires taking an end-to-end view of the logistics and transportation network to understand how changes in one link impact others. It also requires openness to change, including adopting new network designs and other innovations that promise to improve processes in fundamental ways. Supply chains in Barcelona will be analyzed and compared to devise effective management strategies.

This course uses a combination of lectures, case discussions, interactive classroom activities, and guest speakers. Students are expected to have read any assigned readings and cases before the corresponding class session, so they are prepared to actively take part in class discussion.