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Morning Report from LogiChem 2007

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Hello from the LogiChem 2007 conference in Scottsdale, Arizona!

The morning kicked off with Jack Weiss, CEO of Microsoft partner WAM systems, who introduced the speakers and set the stage by discussing industry macro issues such as M&A, the rise of markets and capacity in China, India, and the Middle East, and sustainability.

Dr. Mahender Singh from the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics talked about the difference between correctly identifying trends (e.g. the use of the computer & web in business) vs. correctly predicting outcomes (e.g. 100% paperless office). Interestingly, MIT is using online tools to act as "sensors in the ground" to identify trends and disruptive events that may affect contingency scenarios for supply chain planners. MIT is building an engine to scan the blogosphere and RSS news feeds to flag and analyze this information quickly and communicate it to the supply chain community – a great validation of the relevance of technologies such as blogs as a tool for industry.

Interesting that both Dr. Singh and the Director of Customer Fulfillment from Lyondell cited the original Microsoft vision of "A computer on every desktop and in every home" as one of the transformational trends in the last 30 years. Bill would be proud.

-Marc from the Chemicals Team

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