What framework should a company use to develop its transportation strategies?

Acccording to Dr. Chris Caplice, Executive Director of MIT's Center for Transportation and Logistics, it's smart to think of transportation management as a "bridging function" that interacts with three different "partners."

As shown in the graphic below, taken from a slide in Dr. Caplice's keynote presentation at SCDigest's On-Line Tansportunities Conference and Expo this week, transportation needs to bridge to three main parts:

• The company's own internal supply chain and customers
• The company's carrier base
• Government, and the logistics "infrastructure" that is available

The key takeaway from this is that companies should proactively develop strategies for all three groups. Caplice notes that the government/infrastucture "partner" is the one that many companies fail to put enough attention on.

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