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"Supply Chain Response to Terrorism - Research Discussion"
http://web.mit.edu/scresponse/

On December 6, fourteen executives from APL, British Telecom, General Electric, Intel, Lucent Technologies, Monsanto, NACFAM and UPS met with Professor Yossi Sheffi and the Supply Chain Response Research Team in an open exchange and discussion focusing on the research findings to date and the issues surfaced in the study.

The discussion covered a broad range of topics including:

• reflections on the presentations from the previous day's session

• core issues for companies interested in addressing the problem of disruptions in the supply chain

• sharing among the participants some of the solutions the respective actions their companies were taking

• listing important areas and topics for the research team to consider as key focus areas.

A key outcome of the meeting was defining the desired role that MIT could play in serving some of the needs of the companies, based on the participants' input. These were captured and synthesized into two areas: a research role and an 'integrator' or 'honest broker'/facilitator role between Industry – Government for the purpose of informing the government how to respond without further damaging commerce/business operations.

MIT Research Role

Three research areas were identified with several sub- areas as candidate research focus areas as follows:

1. Assessment of Risk
   Overreaction
   The Threat: Probability & impact of threat
   Identification of the risks
   Correlation of the risks defined and the Insurance Industry response
   
   
2. Response – Corporations
   How to respond
   Flexibility & redundancy in SC design
   Development of measures & incentives for orgzn support
   Developing the business case
   Quantifying the collateral benefit
   
   
3. Response – Industry Level
   Role of technology (various applications: tracking, security checking)
   Economics (business case) at an industry level
   Role of government & industry-government partnerships
   Building & protecting the infrastructure
   Identifying the recovery plan post-disruption
   

Next Steps
The participants each indicated that their organizations would likely be willing to support and fund this work and desire active participation in the project. As follow up, the research team needs to develop specific research plans for addressing the some/all of the focus areas, and further identify potential actions that would constitute serving as an integrator. Specifically, the research team will contact the participants with more specific plans on addressing the research focus areas and a business proposal for funding the work.

Reference Materials

PowerPoint noting the proposed roles for MIT