Key Areas of Research
Logistics Service Provider Technology Report
Logistics Service Provider Technology Report
The Logistics Service Provider Technology Report (LSPTR) will be an annual report published by the University of Maryland’s Supply Chain Management Center that aims to provide technology spend visibility for logistics service providers (LSPs) in a variety of areas.
We find that LSPs do not know how much to invest in technology because public filings do not disclose specifics about IT spend, consulting firms have limited data to back their perspectives, and industry analysts are bias and do not collect hard data. Shippers also cannot compare providers' technology capabilities or investments due to LSPs alignment with strategy being unclear despite marketing various capabilities, and they cannot compare their partners’ technology investment within their segment or the broader market.
Publishing an annual technology report compiling technology spend data will provide a solution to the identified problems and create value for stakeholder groups including, but not limited to: LSPs, software vendors, hardware vendors, shippers, industry associations, trade groups, shareholders, and consulting firms.
The report will encompass all technology-related expenditures of the companies who opt in to provide a complete perspective of LSP interest, activity, and spend on technology, with an initial proof-of-concept/pilot addressing 2 key sub-sets of technology in 2025: AI and robotics.
Geoff Milsom - UMD Professor
Jaclyn Wilton - Advisor
Maggie McGuire - Fellow
Ryan Sachar - UMD Undergraduate Student
Ivy Zheng - UMD Undergraduate Student
Public Pension Contract Minimalism
American Business Law Journal, November 2024
The national pension debt and COVID crises have collided. Post-pandemic economic decline has escalated existing financial strains on state and local pension plans, impacting workers and the public welfare. With unfunded obligations exceeding one trillion dollars, many of these plans are in jeopardy. But the movement to reform government pension contracts has yet to adopt an anchoring idea, leaving judicial decisions in disarray and policymakers without guidance about how to shore up troubled retirement systems. The crux of the problem is the many meanings of contract under state and U.S. Contract Clauses that prevent pension reform. This Essay endorses a promising path forward—contract minimalism. “Contract minimalism” concentrates on the duration of government pension contracts. It posits that public and private employment law should be treated the same. Like its private law counterpart, public sector employment at-will ought to consist of a daily contract interval. A contract-a-day concept entitles employers to change the plan prospectively, with employees receiving a proportionate share of benefits for work performed. Just as several agreements safeguard salaries for labor, they should also mirror the protection afforded to deferred benefits like pensions. Contract minimalism additionally puts public and private sector employers on the same legal footing as to the authority to change pension plan terms. Thus, it aligns public pension benefits with overlapping fields of law, placing them on a firm conceptual foundation. The minimalist approach also has the advantage over approaches that are insufficiently attentive to scarce government resources or employee old-age security. By protecting pension benefits early and incrementally, it advances a middle path with fairer, more coherent results. In the present post-pandemic era of hard choices, minimalism provides an equilibrium between the over and under-protection of pension benefits.
T. Leigh Anenson, Professor of Business Law, University of Maryland and Hannah R. Weiser, Assistant Professor of Law, Bentley University