SMITH BRAIN TRUST -- U.S. companies that moved overseas to save costs are now considering bringing production home again, a survey of U.S.-based manufacturing executives shows.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST -- West Coast ports returned to full speed this week after a two-month labor dispute, leaving importers with a backlog of ships waiting to be unloaded.

When the largest earthquake to ever strike Japan rocked the country on March 11, it triggered a devastating tsunami leaving a wake of destruction and disaster at a nuclear power plant. It also shut down production for many major global manufacturers in Japan— in particular, those related to the auto and hi-tech industries.

In today’s world, when consumers expect that the click of a mouse will result in a package arriving at their doorsteps the next day, the pressure on supply chains to run efficiently is rapidly increasing. Supply chains are much more than trucks, trains, and boats. Supply chain management has become a truly holistic business discipline, an end-to-end coordination process. It seeks to bring demand for goods and services into balance with supply, through companies cooperating and working together as a business ecosystem to serve a common customer base.

When the largest earthquake to ever strike Japan rocked the country on March 11, it triggered a devastating tsunami leaving a wake of destruction and disaster at a nuclear power plant. It also shut down production for many major global manufacturers in Japan— in particular, those related to the auto and hi-tech industries.

College Park, Md. – February 24, 2011 – The nation’s $90 billion fleet of privately owned freight railway cars may be in jeopardy, according to a new report released today by the Supply Chain Management Center at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. The fleet is integral to the efficient movement of goods by rail and drastically reduces the environmental impact of shipping by eliminating the equivalent of 30 million truck shipments a year.

College Park, Md. – February 24, 2011 – The nation’s $90 billion fleet of privately owned freight railway cars may be in jeopardy, according to a new report released today by the Supply Chain Management Center at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. The fleet is integral to the efficient movement of goods by rail and drastically reduces the environmental impact of shipping by eliminating the equivalent of 30 million truck shipments a year.

Supply chain and logistics management is much more than getting manufactured goods from factories in China to shelves in suburban America in time for holiday shopping. For some supply chains, careful management can be a matter of life and death. Take, for example, the risks in moving fuel and supplies to troops in landlocked Afghanistan.

College Park, Md. – Oct. 6, 2010 – The Supply Chain Management Center at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business is bringing together top industry and government leaders to address inefficiencies in today’s supply chain and come up with innovative ways to manage risk.

Research by Thomas Corsi and Sandor Boyson