{"194401":{"#nid":"194401","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Mission to Panama: Georgia Tech Panama Logistics Innovation \u0026 Research Center","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBy Rachael Maddux\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOn the map, the Republic of Panama appears as an umbilical arc connecting the southern tip of Central America with the northwestern corner of South America, bordered on its north by the Caribbean Sea and its south by the Pacific Ocean. The country\u2019s population of just more than 3.5 million is spread out over an area roughly the size of South Carolina, an isthmus peppered with shipping ports and bisected by the 48-mile-long Panama Canal.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETrade between Latin America and the United States is growing faster than trade between the United States and Asia, and Panama\u2019s geographic location and existing resources mean it\u2019s poised to become one of the most important trade hubs in the region, if not the world.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAt the moment, though, its position is precarious.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETake Panama\u2019s famous canal, for example: First dug out by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the early 1900s, the passageway is, in some places, no more than 110 feet wide\u2014too narrow to accommodate massive modern cargo ships. Those vessels\u2019 containers are often offloaded in one of Panama\u2019s many ports, loaded onto a train, shuttled across the country, then loaded onto another ship waiting at another port on the opposite side. Any snafu along the way can send the supply chain toppling like dominoes.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhenever there\u2019s any sort of disruption, containers get backed up,\u201d says Don Ratliff, Regents professor in the Stewart School of Industrial \u0026amp; Systems Engineering and executive director of the Georgia Tech Supply Chain \u0026amp; Logistics Institute. \u201cAnd when they get backed up, they get delayed, and when they get delayed then you have a big problem because now they miss their ship schedules and they\u2019re late getting wherever they go.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAn eight-year effort is underway to broaden the passageways, but even when that\u2019s done, in 2014, Panama\u2019s internal supply chains\u2014the systems of organization, transportation and communication that keep the physical elements of its economy running smoothly\u2014still will be outdated and inefficient, and the country still will lack the academic and applied knowledge base necessary to keep it competitive among the ever-changing international marketplace. That is, unless Ratliff and the industrial and systems engineers of Georgia Tech have something to say about it.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech\u2019s H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial \u0026amp; Systems Engineering is the largest of its kind in the United States, and it has been recognized as having the top undergraduate and graduate program in its field for 23 years. And in 2010, Tech\u2019s ISyE program brought its world-class logistics know-how to Panama with the founding of the Georgia Tech Panama Logistics Innovation \u0026amp; Research Center, which aims to bolster the supply chain and logistics systems that will power Panama into the future.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Center also is focused on helping Panama improve its standing with the World Bank, which annually ranks countries in terms of the ease of doing business. For 2012, Panama was ranked at No. 61, but would prefer to be closer to top-ranked Singapore.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt\u2019s a tall order, but Gary May, EE 85, dean of Tech\u2019s College of Engineering, has equally high confidence. \u201cWe\u2019ve been the number one program in industrial engineering for more than 20 years, and I think the reason why you become number one is because you are providing solutions that solve challenges that are relevant to worldwide issues,\u201d he says. \u201cMy hope is that we will be able to [meet] this particular challenge and lend our expertise and demonstrate why we have the best industrial engineering minds at Georgia Tech.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhy Panama?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Georgia Tech Panama Logistics Innovation \u0026amp; Research Center may be the most ambitious of its kind, but it\u2019s not the first of Tech\u2019s international trade outpost endeavors. In 1999, Tech partnered with the National University of Singapore to launch The Logistics Institute-Asia Pacific to promote research and education in the field of global logistics. Tech has since mostly phased out of operations there, but similar research centers followed in San Jose, Costa Rica and Monterey, Mexico.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERatliff had wanted to get the ball rolling on a Panama center before the launch of the Costa Rica project, but hadn\u2019t established the needed government contacts. In 2009, the Panamanian government changed hands, and plans for the center took off.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPanama City is just a four-hour flight from Atlanta and also is in the Eastern time zone, so there\u2019s less jet lag and fewer middle-of-the-night phone calls with team members; plus the local economy accepts U.S. dollars, and many Panamanians speak English. And in terms of logistics, Panama was the perfect combination of prime location and raw potential, its canal and rail system offering relatively easy access between Asia and the eastern United States, Central America and South America.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt\u2019s just naturally a good place for logistics,\u201d Ratliff says. \u201cAnd [the country] has yet to live up to that potential, so it was very intriguing to figure out why, and what it had to do to improve.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJaymie Forrest, Mgt 89, managing director of the Georgia Tech Supply Chain \u0026amp; Logistics Institute, puts it more bluntly. \u201cFrom a logistics standpoint,\u201d she says of Panama, \u201cit\u2019s Disneyland.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhy\u0026nbsp; Logistics?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAccording to Gary May, in 2013 the study of supply chain and logistics management has \u201cprobably never been more important.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWhat that field is trying to do is optimize the method in which materials and goods are transported from place to place to ensure that they go from their manufacturer to the customer in such a way that it\u2019s seamless and efficient and low cost and on time,\u201d May says. \u201cThere can be a significant distance between where materials and supplies exist for a particular product, where it\u2019s manufactured and where it\u2019s ultimately sold on the marketplace. So to get all those materials and supplies into the right place at the right time is a pretty significant undertaking.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESupply chain and logistics management requires expertise across a variety of fields: trade, transportation, policy, manufacturing. And there are always unknown qualities demanding to be identified; like snowflakes, every supply chain in every country is unique.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cYou can\u2019t sit in your office in Atlanta and understand how these supply chains work,\u201d Ratliff says. \u201cIf you want to look at what the role of Singapore is or Panama is in global supply chain networks, you have to actually go there and see what\u2019s different about what they actually do\u2014what their functions are, everything about them.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAcademically, the field of supply chain and logistics management is concerned with both the micro level (the most efficient way to stack pallets in a warehouse, for example) and macro level (like the complex interactions between a country\u2019s ports and railways).\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cSupply chains and logistics and trade are very closely interrelated,\u201d Ratliff says. \u201cThe more efficient [a country\u2019s logistics] capability is, the less friction there is in trading between countries, and the less friction there is, the better the product\u2019s going to move. If you want to improve your trade, then improving your logistics is one of the essential components of doing that.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESupply chains aren\u2019t something the average person usually has to be concerned with, but they become a matter of great public significance when they are poorly organized, mismanaged or otherwise disrupted. Forrest notes that, because of a scarcity of temperature-controlled supply chain elements within Panama, the country is wasting close to 50 percent of the food that it produces. That lack of cold-chain food supply especially affects the country\u2019s more remote populations, including its indigenous tribes. \u201cIf [Panama] can improve [its] logistics performance, even if they could just save 20 percent of that food, they could feed the rest of the country,\u201d she says.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt\u2019s the job of the Center\u2019s team of engineers to ask: If there\u2019s a disruption within the supply chain, what can be done immediately to lessen the impact? After the disruption, what can be done to get everything back on schedule as quickly as possible? What is the best way to amplify capacity? And what\u2019s the best way to work with public officials to determine the priority of a project\u2019s solution?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMost supply chain and logistics work is done in relation to private companies, but one of the many unique aspects of Tech\u2019s Panama Center is that it\u2019s about \u201ctrying to figure out how a country can do it better,\u201d Ratliff says. The concepts are the same, but the challenges are different. In the public sector, he says, the major players are elected officials, so the turnover rate is higher than within a private company\u2014and the leadership base isn\u2019t always as accustomed to thinking about their work in the logistics context.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI believe we\u2019re the only engineering group, maybe in the world, that tries to look at country-level logistics performance and the ideas to improve the ability of private sector companies to have better supply chains,\u201d Ratliff says.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMeet the Pyramid\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo maximize Panama\u2019s emerging role in the international trade economy, the Panama Logistics Research Center has developed a three-part plan that interlocks and builds upon itself, each element\u2014research, education, competitiveness\u2014integral to the rest. Ratliff thinks of it as a pyramid, with research as the foundation, education the middle rung, and competitiveness the pinnacle.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe research aspect has been underway since Tech first established itself in Panama and began to ask the most basic questions: What is the country\u2019s supply chain system like? What are all the elements, the moving parts? What works? What doesn\u2019t?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe education component allows Panamanians to become involved with that research, to both directly benefit from it and carry it forward. The Center itself offers two professional certifications, Principles of Supply Chain and Logistics and the Lean Supply Chain series, both three-module programs aimed at quickly developing human capital to support the country\u2019s burgeoning logistics needs. And Tech has partnered with local Panamanian universities to offer dual master\u0027s degrees through a combination of university coursework in Panama, online coursework with Tech professors, a semester in Atlanta and a capstone project completed back on the ground at the Center. As those students move through the programs, their work generates more research, more data to funnel into the knowledge pool.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs more is learned about the supply chain logistics in Panama, more can be done to improve them. And as more Panamanians graduate from the Tech program, they\u2019re better equipped to work toward that improvement themselves.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBoots on the Ground\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EPablo Achurra, MS SCE 11, is a graduate of the dual master\u2019s program. His capstone project on \u201cPanama\u2019s ocean containerized connectivity\u201d complemented the Center\u2019s research agenda, and he was hired as a research engineer upon the completion of his degree. A year and a half into his stint at the Center, he\u2019s collaborating with the Inter-American Development Bank on a project relating to port performance and connectivity in Central America and the Dominican Republic.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cSome projects have expanded from a Panama-only scope to a regional scope. Methodologies and problem-solving techniques developed for Panama are applicable to other countries with similar logistics issues,\u201d he says. \u201cThis is a win-win situation because it facilitates future improvement of regional logistics performance and even integration.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EYuritza Oliver has been a senior research engineer at the Center for a little more than two years. \u201cAt the beginning, in order to comply with our research agenda, we needed to request information in many places and knock on doors, since people did not know that much about the Center,\u201d she says. Now, though, as knowledge of the Center\u2019s purpose and reputation have spread among those higher-ups, she says, \u201cSometimes they\u2019re even the ones looking for us.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBridging the gap between the research and competitiveness components of the Center\u2019s pyramid is a cabinet of some of Panama\u2019s most influential players in the technology and transportation industries. Among them are Jose Barrios Ng, MS EE 71, deputy administrator of the Panama Canal Authority; and Roberto Roy, ME 69, MS IM 71, secretary of Metro, Panama\u2019s countrywide public transportation system. Panama\u2019s vice president, Juan Carlos Varela, is also a Tech alumnus (IE 85) and has been supportive of the Center.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe center\u2019s research engineers provide analytics and data-derived concepts to the cabinet, whose members are in a position of power to act on those suggestions. \u201cIt\u2019s the first time that we\u2019ve been involved with that level of activity,\u201d Ratliff says, \u201cwhere you\u2019re not only trying to do the research and the education, but you\u2019re trying to help the public sector understand what they need to do.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELook to the Future\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESo far, one of the Center\u2019s most visible accomplishments has been the development of the Panama Logistics Portal (logistics.gatech.pa), an extensive, open-access repository for the data gathered by researchers. It\u2019s open to Panamanian officials, industry leaders, potential trade partners\u2014even just curious internet users who want to gawk at video of cargo ships moving through locks in real time or fiddle around with the seemingly endless scalable maps.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn many ways, though, it\u2019s too early to speak of the Center\u2019s major successes or predict what its future may bring. Ultimately, it all depends on how Panama\u2019s industry leaders choose to utilize the knowledge and the skilled workers the Center produces.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOne way to measure the success is a tally of how many other countries call Ratliff and his team to see about installing a center on their own turf. Recently he\u2019s heard from industry leaders in Argentina and Chile interested in forging a partnership with the Institution similar to Panama\u2019s and Costa Rica\u2019s. He\u2019s had to shuffle those projects to a wish list, for now, but he recognizes that Tech is in a unique position.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cMost countries want to improve their exports, and poor logistics is a barrier. And so they\u2019re very interested in what we do,\u201d Ratliff says. \u201cWhen it comes to logistics and trade, I don\u2019t believe there\u2019s another university anywhere that has comparable knowledge. If you look at people who do research in trade, they\u2019re mostly economists\u2014they\u2019re not engineers.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor all its success so far, the Panama center is still an experiment, and one at the mercy of SENACYT, Panama\u2019s equivalent of the National Science Foundation, which partly funds the center. It could always pull the plug, leaving Ratliff and his team no choice but to pack it up and apply what they\u2019ve been able to learn in Panama to their next overseas foray. But the director feels confident about the Center\u2019s mission and its future.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cYou\u2019re going in, and if you\u2019re providing value then you stay, and if you\u2019re not providing and getting value then you do something else,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I think we\u2019ve just sort of scratched the surface.\u201d\u003Cstrong\u003E\u0026nbsp; \u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E(This article first appeared in the \u003Cem\u003EGeorgia Tech Alumni Magazine\u003C\/em\u003E, Volume 89, No. 1, 2013)\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech has brought its world-class logistics know-how to Panama with the founding of the Georgia Tech Panama Logistics Innovation \u0026amp; Research Center, which aims to bolster the supply chain and logistics systems that will power Panama into the 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