Transportation and Logistics Collaborative
The Transportation and Logistics Collaborative is an initiative of the Global Supply Chain Institute, working with faculty from the Department of Supply Chain Management, Center for Transportation Research, and Baker School of Public Policy and Public Affairs. Grounded in the rich, 80-year tradition of teaching and research in transportation by UT’s business faculty, TLC bolsters the understanding of how transportation systems, policies, and industry interact in the United States.
TLC aims to be a leading contributor to education, research, and benchmarking for executive leadership in the logistics profession. The collaborative works explicitly to support economic development efforts within the field of transportation and logistics in Tennessee and beyond.
The collaborative seeks to:
- Be the first point of contact for information, education, and research in logistics and transportation in Tennessee.
- Act as a repository of information concerning the different facets of the discipline.
- Engage in partnerships that achieve excellence by solving real-world problems that achieve bottom-line impact; graduate students with real-world project experience; produce cutting-edge research that is relevant, applicable, and impactful; and leverage intellectual and monetary capital among partnering organizations through its research efforts.
Founding members of TLC include:
Transportation and Logistics White Papers
Last Mile, Reverse Logistics, and the New World Order in E-Commerce Delivery
According to Shopify, “a successful last mile experience makes up 53% of total supply chain costs and comes with its own set of challenges.” While challenges associated with last mile logistics are high, consumer expectations are higher. Following the global shake-up in shipping and supply chain management caused by COVID-19, consumers now expect shipped goods to arrive fast and free. This has forced supply chain leaders to innovate, pivot, evolve e-commerce methods, and deliver in ways they hadn’t before. To help business professionals better understand the shifting last mile and reverse logistics landscape, researchers working with the Advanced Supply Chain Collaborative investigated this area as society’s emerged from the pandemic.
Modern Takes on Transportation in Supply Chain Management
Transportation is the chief agent of motion in global supply chains. Ensuring continuous connectivity and visibility into where products are once they’ve shipped (i.e., end-to-end supply chain visibility) is a great challenge highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This white paper explores best practices, challenges, and predictions for transportation in supply chain management, as well as solutions for supply chain leaders when it comes to evolving transportation industry trends.
New Supply Chain Technology Best Practices
Keeping up with the latest supply chain technologies can feel like a full-time job. Understanding, adopting, and integrating the growing list of modern supply chain innovations is an even greater challenge. This white paper illustrates supply chain best practices for applying new technology advances to your physical supply chain and organizational strategy. In an era of unprecedented advances, Paul Dittmann outlines an easy-to-follow, well-researched guide for navigating innovation.
Selecting and Managing a Third Party Logistics Provider
The role of third party logistics (3PL) providers has significantly evolved beyond traditional transportation and warehousing. Today's 3PLs encompass a broad range of supply chain services. While historically, third party logistics companies focused on physical distribution and logistics, now they are seen as strategic partners offering customized solutions across the entire supply chain. This white paper serves as a checklist for addressing selecting and managing a provider as well as 3PL-related supply chain best practices.
Preparing Supply Chain Leaders for Future Megatrends in Transportation
The transportation industry is significantly transforming as it faces a convergence of megatrends. Corresponding challenges will both affect and shape the future of global supply chains. Forward-thinking supply chain leaders recognize the importance of anticipating these changes and building the capabilities necessary to navigate them. This white paper identifies critical transportation megatrends that will redefine the industry, offering insight into the key strategies that industry thought leaders are adopting to ensure success in 2025 and beyond. Download the paper to explore these supply chain transportation insights and strategies and build a transportation framework that drives value and innovation.
Supply Chain Management Challenges and Best Practices
For decades, supply chain leaders have focused on performance issues emerging from a lack of business alignment with supply chain operations. With significant business integration improvements and systemic processes like Integrated Business Planning (IBP) and Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP), our research has uncovered a new opportunity for supply chain optimization within the traditional supply chain functions. Firms that do not align purchasing and logistics are missing an opportunity to create value. Our team worked with hundreds of companies to identify supply chain best practices your business can implement, as well as to illustrate how high performers are “bending the chain” to better align these two key functions.
Transportation and Logistics News
Yemisi Bolumole Contributes to Federal Study and Publication on Long-Haul Driver Compensation and Safety
UT Knoxville supply chain management professor Yemisi Bolumole contributed to a nationwide study examining the impacts of compensation methods on driver retention and safety in the trucking industry. The report, which Congress requested, was conducted by experts recruited by the Transportation Research Board (TRB) of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine.
UT Research Finds Female Truckers More Likely to Comply with Safety Regulations
The research co-authored by Alex Scott found that male drivers were 13.2 percent more likely to have received a major unsafe driving violation.
UT Takes a Leadership Role at the Airport Ground Transportation Association Conference
Jeff Trombly of the supply chain management faculty recently helped to organize the AGTA Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, from Sept. 29 to Oct. 2, 2024. UT is the only university actively involved with the AGTA, which consists of more than 200 members working for domestic and international airports, ground transportation operators, and the parking industry.
Understanding Organized Labor’s Impact on Our Supply Chain
With the reopening of the East Coast ports, the United States avoided another potential disruption to its supply chain. J.P. Morgan estimated that each day the ports were closed cost the US economy approximately $4 billion—a roughly $12 billion impact after three days of strikes. Yet the threat of a potentially longer strike isn’t over, only delayed until at least January 15, 2025.
Transportation and Logistics Collaborative Concludes Year One with Inaugural Director and High-Level Industry and Government Projects
In the past year, the Transportation and Logistics Collaborative (TLC) led by Ryder Professor Yemisi Bolumole has made progress on significant projects with private sector companies, U.S. government agencies, and universities.
What to Know About Coming US Industry Emissions Reporting Rules
Disclosure requirements for U.S. industry greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are inevitable. However, what form these requirements will take is unclear, according to Alex Scott, associate professor and Gerald T. Niedert Professor of Supply Chain Management, at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Haslam College of Business. As evidence of these rules’ fait accompli, Scott cites several developments in this blog.
‘Historic’ Teamsters’ Contract Means Labor Can Flex Its Muscles Beyond Supply Chain, Expert Says
Hailed by the Teamsters as “the most historic collective bargaining agreement in the history of UPS,” their recently approved five-year contract with the shipping giant is full of wins for the union. In this follow-up Q&A, Alan Amling, who worked at UPS for 27 years, discusses how the Teamsters will leverage this win and what it says about labor’s strength in the U.S.
Making Sense of Sustainability Reporting Requirements
In previous blog posts, professor and transportation expert Alex Scott examined current standards for measuring truck emissions and proposed a science-based, data-driven method for improving how Scope 3 truck emissions are measured. Here he shares how to make sense of sustainability reporting requirements.