SMITH BRAIN TRUST — Research firm Gartner projects 25 billion sensor devices will be connected to the Internet of Things by 2020. This includes components in U.S. military supply chains, where counterfeiters can embed sensors to compromise national security and cause extensive economic damage. Rich Fitzgerald, a graduate of the University of Maryland's Robert H.

The Supply Chain Management Center at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business will collaborate with the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE), part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), on a first of its kind risk assessment project.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — Amazon may be synonymous with online shopping and fast shipping, but Walmart isn't ceding the e-commerce field to its hipper rival. Walmart announced last week that it was ramping up its efforts to counter Amazon's very successful Amazon Prime program — for $99 a year, Amazon offers free two-day shipping and a host of other benefits, i

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — Saudi Arabia has announced a plan to spin off about 5 percent of its state-owned oil company, Saudi Aramco — which, at $2 trillion (some estimates are even higher), may be the most valuable company on Earth.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — Crashes of large trucks are on the rise in the United States.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — Amazon has announced it is leasing 20 Boeing 767 planes in order to move its own goods, a move that could significantly impact FedEx and UPS, which it now leans on to deliver many of its packages. Some analysts are even wondering if Jeff Bezos's company might be positioning itself to become a competitor to FedEx and UPS.

Meeting current customer demands won’t be enough in 2025, keynote speaker Calvin G. Butler Jr. said on Nov. 13, 2015, at the fourth annual Smith School Business Summit in Baltimore. “Meeting the current demands of customers is only part of it,” said Butler, CEO of Baltimore Gas and Electric Company. “You need to think about where your customers are going, and you need to meet them there.”

Supply chain experts at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business have spurred the implementation of a new system that will accelerate trade and save U.S. businesses money and time. Soon, the current paper-based system required by the U.S. government to import or export cargo will give way to the new “single window,” electronic data collection process, dubbed the International Trade Data System. It becomes mandatory in February 2016.

Brazilian immigrant Viviane Hembrock ’13 grew up surrounded by shipping. Her hometown of Santos, São Paulo, processes more than 3.5 million cargo containers annually, making it the busiest port in Latin America.

Twenty-four supply chain students from the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business traveled to the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) EXPO on Sept. 20-22, 2015, in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. The students are in the school’s Supply Chain Management Fellows program, which is fully funded by IANA, and the trip was part of the “Seminar in Supply Chain Management: An Executive Perspective” (BMGT 471) course.