{"692756":{"#nid":"692756","#data":{"type":"news","title":"ISyE Earns No. 1 Undergraduate Ranking for 26th Consecutive Year","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EFor the 26th consecutive year, \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EGeorgia Tech\u0027s H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE)\u003C\/a\u003E earned the No. 1 ranking among undergraduate industrial engineering programs in the latest \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.usnews.com\/best-colleges\u0022\u003EU.S. News \u0026amp; World Report Best Colleges rankings\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe annual U.S. News \u0026amp; World Report Best Colleges rankings are based on assessments from academic leaders at peer institutions nationwide. \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe recognition comes at a time of significant momentum for ISyE. This fall, the school moved into \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/news.gatech.edu\/news\/2026\/09\/18\/georgia-tech-celebrates-completion-george-tower-scheller-tower?utm_source=newsletter\u0026amp;utm_medium=email\u0026amp;utm_content=Celebrating%20the%20Opening%20of%20George%20Tower%20%7C%20Scheller%20Tower\u0026amp;utm_campaign=Daily%20Digest%20-%20Sept.%2021%2C%202026\u0022\u003EGeorge Tower\u003C\/a\u003E in Tech Square, a new home designed to support learning, collaboration, and innovation while creating new opportunities for engagement with students, alumni, industry partners, and the broader Georgia Tech community. \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDemand for ISyE\u0027s undergraduate program continues to grow, with a record 1,536 students enrolled for the fall 2026 semester, a 10% increase from the previous year. ISyE graduates continue to find success after graduation, with a median starting salary of $90,000 for 2025-26 bachelor\u0027s degree recipients and 84% of job-seeking graduates receiving at least one job offer before graduation. Alumni pursue careers across consulting, logistics, finance, technology, manufacturing, and startups, with top employers including The Home Depot, Delta Air Lines, McKinsey \u0026amp; Company, Capital One, and PwC.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe College of Engineering also achieved a historic milestone in the latest \u003Cem\u003EU.S. News\u003C\/em\u003E rankings, rising to \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/coe.gatech.edu\/news\/2026\/09\/undergrad-engineering-reaches-no-2-2027-us-news-rankings\u0022\u003ENo. 2 nationally\u003C\/a\u003E. All 10 undergraduate engineering programs were ranked among the nation\u0027s top five.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe recognition comes as Georgia Tech\u0027s H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) continues to build momentum, marked by record enrollment, strong career outcomes, and a new home in Tech Square.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"The recognition comes as Georgia Tech\u0027s H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) continues to build momentum, marked by record enrollment, strong career outcomes, and a new home in Tech Square."}],"uid":"35874","created_gmt":"2026-09-22 12:25:07","changed_gmt":"2026-09-22 17:35:33","author":"Anna Akins","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-09-22T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-09-22T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"681220":{"id":"681220","type":"image","title":"For the 26th consecutive year, ISyE\u0027s undergraduate program earned the top spot in the U.S. News \u0026 World Report\u0027s Best Colleges rankings.","body":null,"created":"1790079925","gmt_created":"2026-09-22 12:25:25","changed":"1790080203","gmt_changed":"2026-09-22 12:30:03","alt":"For the 26th consecutive year, ISyE\u0027s undergraduate program earned the top spot in the U.S. News \u0026 World Report\u0027s Best Colleges rankings.","file":{"fid":"265587","name":"U.S.-News---World-Report.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/09\/22\/U.S.-News---World-Report.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/09\/22\/U.S.-News---World-Report.png","mime":"image\/png","size":1760761,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/09\/22\/U.S.-News---World-Report.png?itok=jGHLIGXS"}}},"media_ids":["681220"],"groups":[{"id":"1250","name":"Center for Health and Humanitarian Systems (CHHS)"},{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"},{"id":"1243","name":"The Supply Chain and Logistics Institute (SCL)"}],"categories":[{"id":"42911","name":"Education"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAnna Akins\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003ECommunications Manager I\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"692454":{"#nid":"692454","#data":{"type":"news","title":"ISyE Launches New Minor in Health Systems, Open to Undergraduates Across Georgia Tech ","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech\u0027s \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EH. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE)\u003C\/a\u003E is launching a new \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/catalog.gatech.edu\/programs\/minor-health-systems\/#requirementstext\u0022\u003EMinor in Health Systems\u003C\/a\u003E this fall. The 15-credit-hour minor is listed in the 2026-2027 catalog and is open to undergraduates in every major.\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EThe minor is designed to equip students to address complex challenges across healthcare delivery, public health, and health-related decision-making. Through coursework in analytics, optimization, policy, and systems engineering, students will learn how to improve access to care, strengthen healthcare operations, and make better use of limited resources.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA hospital decides how many operating rooms to staff on a specific day. A vaccine that works in a trial fails to reach the population that needs it. A single manufacturer\u2019s plant shuts down due to a hurricane and a routine medical supply becomes unavailable nationwide. A public health agency has to decide whether limited resources will have greater impact through a screening program or a housing intervention.\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EThese are the types of real-world challenges students in the Health Systems minor will learn to address. They are not purely medical questions. They are systems questions, and they are the kinds of challenges industrial and systems engineers are equipped to solve.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\u0022Many of today\u2019s health challenges are fundamentally systems challenges,\u201d said \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/users\/pinar-keskinocak\u0022\u003EPinar Keskinocak\u003C\/a\u003E, the H. Milton and Carolyn J. Stewart School Chair and professor in ISyE. \u201cImproving health requires not only advances in medicine, but also better systems for prevention, access, care delivery, and decision-making.\u0022\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EThe minor was developed by Professors \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/users\/turgay-ayer\u0022\u003ETurgay Ayer\u003C\/a\u003E, ISyE\u2019s Virginia C. and Joseph C. Mello Chair and professor, and \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/users\/nicoleta-serban\u0022\u003ENicoleta Serban\u003C\/a\u003E, an ISyE professor, working with faculty across ISyE\u0027s health systems area.\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\u201cHealth systems problems are complex because decisions made in one part of the system often have consequences elsewhere,\u201d said Ayer. \u201cWe developed this minor to give students a systems-level understanding of healthcare systems, while equipping them with practical analytical and decision-making tools. Our goal is for students to leave the program prepared to translate data into better decisions and, ultimately, better health outcomes.\u201d\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\u201cThis minor grew out of years of health systems research and teaching across ISyE,\u201d added Serban. \u201cThrough my work in health analytics, Medicaid policy, healthcare access, and health system complexity, and through teaching Public Health Systems, I saw both the breadth of faculty expertise in this area and strong student interest in engaging with it. The minor brings those strengths together in one pathway that enables students from across Georgia Tech to understand health systems and develop the analytical tools to improve them.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EWhat students take\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe minor is 15 credit hours: a statistics foundation, two required health systems courses, and at least two electives.\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003EStudents begin with a statistics course, choosing from seven options across campus: ISYE 3770, ISYE 3030, BME 2400, ECE 3077, ECON 2250, MGT 2250, or PUBP 3120. This flexibility allows students from a variety of academic disciplines to enter the health systems core with a shared quantitative foundation.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ETwo ISyE courses form the core. Public Health Systems (ISYE 4510), designed by Serban and Keskinocak, works at the population scale. Many health challenges are shaped long before patients enter a hospital. The course examines factors that influence access to care, prevention, and population health, and explores how engineering and data-driven approaches can improve outcomes.\u003Cbr\u003EStudents study healthcare access: how to measure it, how geography shapes it, and what epidemiology and spatial analysis reveal about who a system reaches.\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EThe course also spends three weeks on prevention and wellbeing across infectious and non-infectious disease. The organizing theme is what Serban calls the three E\u0027s: equity, efficiency, and effectiveness, and the trade-offs among them when resources are finite. Students leave able to identify where quantitative methods can improve public health decision-making.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EIntelligent Healthcare Delivery Systems (ISYE 4515) launches alongside the minor. The course was originally designed by Ayer and is being adapted for this minor by \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/users\/dima-nazzal\u0022\u003EDima Nazzal\u003C\/a\u003E, ISyE\u2019s associate chair for academic administration, and \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/users\/lauren-steimle\u0022\u003ELauren Steimle\u003C\/a\u003E, the Harold R. and Mary Anne Nash Early Career Professor and assistant professor in ISyE. The course focuses on healthcare delivery: how patients move through clinics and hospitals, where care transitions break, and how to map a process well enough to identify where to change it. Students learn to evaluate a health system\u0027s performance and model improvements through process design and resource allocation, such as bed allocation, operating room block scheduling, and nurse staffing. \u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\u201cJust as doctors diagnose and treat disease when patients present with symptoms, students in this class will learn engineering tools to diagnose and solve process problems that lead to symptoms such as delays in care, shortages of medical supplies, and provider burnout,\u201d said Steimle. \u201cWith these skills, students will be prepared to help healthcare systems deliver the right care to the right people, in the right place, at the right time.\u201d\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EThe remaining six credit hours come from a slate of more than 25 electives in five categories: health systems analytics and modeling; health policy, economics, and management; environmental, public health, and bio-inspired systems; health systems modeling and optimization; and machine learning and data science for health. The courses come from Biomedical Engineering, the College of Computing, the Scheller College of Business, the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, the College of Design, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Electrical and Computer Engineering, as well as ISyE. Students are encouraged to choose from more than one category.\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\u0022A student can come into this from computing, from policy, from business, from design,\u0022 said Nazzal. \u0022We built the electives so that whatever quantitative preparation a student already has counts for something, and so that nobody has to leave their major behind to work on health. Health systems problems don\u0027t get solved by one discipline, and the curriculum shouldn\u0027t pretend otherwise.\u0022\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EStudents may also complete an optional experiential component through a health-focused Senior Design capstone, undergraduate research, a Vertically Integrated Project, or a Serve-Learn-Sustain project. Students whose primary project isn\u0027t health-related complete a structured addendum connecting the work to health systems challenges.\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EFor most students, courses count toward both major and minor requirements. Prerequisites and full requirements are in the catalog, and students should check them against their own program before declaring.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EISyE: A leader in health systems engineering\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EGeorgia Tech is well known for health research. Less well known is the role industrial and systems engineering has played in advancing health systems research for decades.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EISyE\u0027s health systems footprint spans different kinds of problems. In healthcare operations, faculty and students work on patient flow, scheduling, capacity, and care coordination inside hospitals and clinics. In health systems and supply chains, they study how care, drugs, vaccines, and medical equipment move across networks of providers and suppliers. In AI and analytics for health, they address medical decision-making, disease modeling, and the role of algorithms in healthcare. In public health systems, they examine access, equity, and population-level resource allocation.\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EThat work runs through a \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/academics\/masters\/degrees\/ms-health-systems\u0022\u003EMaster of Science in Health Systems\u003C\/a\u003E, the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/chhs.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003ECenter for Health and Humanitarian Systems\u003C\/a\u003E, and Senior Design \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/capstone.isye.gatech.edu\/?field_category_target_id=6419\u0026amp;combine=\u0022\u003Eprojects\u003C\/a\u003E that have been going into Georgia\u2019s health systems for years. Research collaborators include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Children\u0027s Healthcare of Atlanta, Emory University, and the Georgia Department of Public Health among many others. Senior Design sponsors have included Emory Healthcare, Wellstar, Grady Health System, Piedmont Healthcare, and Northside Hospital. These projects are not case studies: student teams work on real challenges brought by sponsors and deliver decision-support tools and other design solutions.\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EMore than twenty ISyE faculty work in health and humanitarian systems, spanning patient-centered decision support, clinician guidance, healthcare operations, health network design, and policy evaluation.\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\u0022ISyE has been a leader in health systems research, education, and practice for decades,\u201d said Keskinocak. \u201cThis minor creates a clear pathway for undergraduate students from across Georgia Tech to apply analytics, AI, optimization, and systems thinking to some of society\u0027s most important challenges in healthcare and public health.\u0022\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EFull requirements are in the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/catalog.gatech.edu\/programs\/minor-health-systems\/#requirementstext\u0022\u003EGeorgia Tech Catalog\u003C\/a\u003E and on the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/academics\/undergraduate\/degrees\/minor-health-systems\u0022\u003EISyE Health Systems minor page\u003C\/a\u003E.\u0026nbsp;\u003Cbr\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EOpen to all Georgia Tech undergraduates, ISyE\u0027s new Health Systems minor equips students to improve healthcare through analytics, optimization, policy, and systems thinking.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Open to all Georgia Tech undergraduates, ISyE\u0027s new Health Systems minor equips students to improve healthcare through analytics, optimization, policy, and systems thinking."}],"uid":"35874","created_gmt":"2026-09-09 12:41:22","changed_gmt":"2026-09-15 19:19:10","author":"Anna Akins","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-09-09T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-09-09T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"681100":{"id":"681100","type":"image","title":"ISyE faculty leading the new Health Systems minor include (top row, left to right) Dima Nazzal, Pinar Keskinocak, and Turgay Ayer; and (bottom row, left to right) Lauren Steimle and Nicoleta Serban.","body":null,"created":"1788957700","gmt_created":"2026-09-09 12:41:40","changed":"1788957700","gmt_changed":"2026-09-09 12:41:40","alt":"ISyE faculty leading the new Health Systems minor include (top row, left to right) Dima Nazzal, Pinar Keskinocak, and Turgay Ayer; and (bottom row, left to right) Lauren Steimle and Nicoleta Serban.","file":{"fid":"265455","name":"Health-Systems-Minor-collage.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/09\/09\/Health-Systems-Minor-collage.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/09\/09\/Health-Systems-Minor-collage.png","mime":"image\/png","size":1376403,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/09\/09\/Health-Systems-Minor-collage.png?itok=6EZ9wDu4"}},"681101":{"id":"681101","type":"image","title":"ISyE researchers are addressing critical healthcare challenges through data-driven health systems research. Lauren Steimle\u0027s work on maternal healthcare access, conducted with Meghan Meredith (ISyE Ph.D. \u002725), is one example.","body":null,"created":"1788958044","gmt_created":"2026-09-09 12:47:24","changed":"1788958044","gmt_changed":"2026-09-09 12:47:24","alt":"ISyE researchers are addressing critical healthcare challenges through data-driven health systems research. Lauren Steimle\u0027s work on maternal healthcare access, conducted with Meghan Meredith (ISyE Ph.D. \u002725), is one example.","file":{"fid":"265456","name":"Meghan20computers.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/09\/09\/Meghan20computers.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/09\/09\/Meghan20computers.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":6614051,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/09\/09\/Meghan20computers.jpg?itok=c-IaOpXR"}}},"media_ids":["681100","681101"],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"},{"id":"1243","name":"The Supply Chain and Logistics Institute (SCL)"}],"categories":[{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39541","name":"Systems"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"691913":{"#nid":"691913","#data":{"type":"news","title":"The Hardest Ramp-Up in America: A Supply Chain View of the Defense Industrial Base","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EBy \u003C\/em\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/expert\/chris-gaffney\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EChris Gaffney\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cem\u003E, Managing Director of the Georgia Tech Supply Chain and Logistics Institute and a former Vice President of Global Strategic Supply Chain at The Coca-Cola Company and \u003C\/em\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/edgesupplychain.com\/team\/bill-eidenire\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EBill Eidenire\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cem\u003E, former operations and transformation leader at The Coca-Cola Company and UPS.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA few weeks ago I sat down with a friend who works in the defense industry. His role gives him current visibility into the contractors now being asked to rapidly scale production of munitions and interceptors after a season of heavy use. I knew from his hands-on background he would have a point of view that would validate or challenge my perceptions. What I got instead was a conversation any plant manager would recognize and was quite familiar with my food and beverage experience. In sophisticated and automated operations, it still comes down to having qualified people who are engaged in a process-disciplined culture.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHe described operations that depend on specific people more than solely on documented processes. Sequencing steps marked with tape on the tooling. Machine settings carried on a folded sheet of paper in an operator\u0027s back pocket. Tools modified by hand over the years, with the changes never finding their way back into the work instructions. He walked through the standard surge playbook familiar to me, adding a third or fourth shift and moving the most experienced operators to nights to anchor it. Then he smiled and said that third shift is where the magic happens. He meant it with affection and a wince at the same time.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ENone of this was foreign to me. I spent my early career in plant and distribution operations at Frito-Lay and then 25 years in the Coca-Cola system, and I have seen every one of these patterns. So I tested the conversation with several people in my network, most of them Coca-Cola alumni, plant managers and continuous improvement leaders, and one with a deep project management background. They all landed in the same place. The complexity is real. The people dealing with it deserve empathy rather than criticism, because they are being asked to do something genuinely hard: rebuild years of inventory in months, with supply chains built for a different era, often without the contracts that would let them invest.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EHow We Got Here, Honestly\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe defense industrial base did not get fragile through negligence. It got fragile through rational decisions, made year after year, that optimized for a demand pattern that had been reduced across a long timeframe.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EConsider the Tomahawk cruise missile. CSIS reports that orders averaged 86 missiles a year over the past decade, so recent production ran under 200 a year even though the manufacturer\u0027s capacity goal exceeds 1,000. Nobody sized that production schedule and capacity plan incorrectly. It was sized to the order book. The same logic explains the single sourcing that is common in the defense industry. Peacetime volumes could not sustain two qualified suppliers of anything specialized, so awarding the work to one kept one alive. Lean and just-in-time practices, imported from those of us in commercial industry, minimized carrying costs exactly as designed.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ECSIS estimates it will take three or more years to restore inventories of the interceptors and missiles most heavily used in recent operations. When the National Defense Industrial Association surveyed its members about barriers to surging capacity, the top answer was not machines or floor space. Fifty-six percent said they had no contract vehicle to justify expansion, and 41 percent pointed to the technical workforce. Suppliers have been burned before, and the deeper tiers reach into global sources, including China, for materials and components most of us would assume were made here.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESome of the gaps are genuinely surprising. The United States has not produced its own TNT since 1986. The primary explosive fill for artillery shells has come entirely from overseas for nearly four decades. A new plant is finally under construction in Kentucky, fully funded and politically championed, and its estimated completion is early 2029, roughly four and a half years after the contract was signed. Meanwhile, seven of the most heavily consumed missiles trace back to two prime contractors and essentially one solid rocket motor industrial base, with several programs drawing on the same small labor markets in places like Camden, Arkansas.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EReasons for Optimism, and Lessons from Other Ramps\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis is a challenging situation, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Since January the Pentagon has signed multiyear framework agreements intended to lift Patriot PAC-3 production from roughly 600 to 2,000 interceptors a year over seven years, THAAD from 96 to 400, and Tomahawk toward more than 1,000. Congress carved out dedicated funding for the solid rocket motor base. And the Army\u0027s 155mm artillery ramp, while short of its goal, has proven something useful: spreading production across several smaller facilities has delivered, with new propellant plants opening ahead of schedule, while the single large facility built on untested equipment has struggled. Spreading the wealth to additional producers has started to build resilience.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMy friends pushed the conversation toward a question I think holds the real value: where have other industries ramped capacity under pressure, and what did they learn? Three cases stand out to me, and together they carry one message.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EYou can\u0027t build sustainable capacity without committed demand.\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe largest domestic surgical mask maker offered in January 2020 to reactivate four mothballed N95 lines, and the federal government showed little interest. They were able to ramp up production a few months later when the Texas National Guard helped staff them to 24-hour operation. Rational suppliers do not build capacity against urgency alone. Operation Warp Speed proved the other side of the same coin: advance purchase agreements signed before vaccine trials even finished, priority ratings on materials, government staff embedded at manufacturing sites, and regulatory steps run in parallel rather than in sequence.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThen there is UPS, a story from our own industry. After the 2013 peak season failure left an estimated two million packages undelivered on Christmas Eve, UPS spent half a billion dollars on trucks, sorting capacity, and people. Delivery performance recovered, and earnings cratered when forecast volumes failed to appear. The lasting fix took years: disciplined demand shaping with retailers, collaborative forecasting, and automated capacity that was still coming online in 2018.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EEfficiency won\u0027t get you there.\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESurge capacity is a different investment from efficient operations, and even a company with money, urgency, and full control of its own network bought it in years, not quarters.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat is the common denominator across every case, and it was the project manager in the group who put a fine point on it. The schedule is set by the slowest constraint, whether that is a chemical plant, a qualification test, a hiring funnel, or a training curve. The solutions that actually work are the ones that buy time back: demand certainty that starts the clock sooner, doing in parallel what tradition does in sequence, and managing demand honestly while capacity catches up.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EWhat We Would Do: It Still Comes Down to People\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EUnderneath the contracts and the chemistry, the constraint I keep coming back to is the one my friend led with that matched our experience at Coca-Cola. These are person-centric operations, and the surge playbook puts them at risk at the worst possible moment. We learned at Coca-Cola that around-the-clock operations do not add capacity in a straight line, especially in less automated environments. The research agrees, showing night shifts running measurably behind days in manual work while highly automated lines show little difference. Moving your best operators to third shift while handing first shift to trainees stretches your thinnest asset, which is experienced judgment, exactly when quality margins are tightest.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESo before adding a shift, I would count the operations that only one person can run to spec. Most plants I worked with never thought to do this math. I would treat the ramp itself as the opportunity because your best people are demonstrating everything they know every day while they train others. Put cameras on the setups and build the digital work instructions now, not after the veterans retire. I would open a no-fault \u201clibrary book amnesty\u201d window for operators to bring the taped sequences and pocket settings into the documented process, because those informal practices are the real process, and punishing their discovery only keeps them hidden.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnd I would hold one line firmly: no single person should ever be the sole verifier of safety-critical test results. I have seen what happens when one person\u0027s \u201cread\u201d of a gauge becomes the only record that a batch was in spec. The mistake does not surface until the product is already in the market, and by then it is not a documentation problem anymore.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFinally, we as supply chain professionals should give contractors some flexibility. Defense suppliers are heavily audited, and their quality image is deserved, but specs for specs\u0027 sake are a genuine bottleneck. The pharmaceutical industry figured this out: classify which parameters actually carry the product\u0027s reliability and protect those absolutely, then flex what is merely habit. Do that classification with the senior operators in the room, because they know which settings matter and which ones are folklore.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERequirements that carry reliability are sacred. Requirements that carry only tradition are negotiable, and a surge is the right time to know the difference. That classification should produce something durable, not a conversation everyone forgets by the next shift: a change-controlled, plant-floor document, owned by the senior operators who built it, that travels with the work instructions and gets revisited every time the line changes hands.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe people inside these plants are not the problem. They are the asset, and in many cases they are the process. If we respect that, preserve what they know, and give them the certainty and the flexibility to do their jobs, a rapid ramp-up can succeed.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EA final question: \u003C\/strong\u003EDo you understand your process dependencies on key players and single operators? If you aren\u0027t comfortable with a single-source supplier, why would you be comfortable with your business continuity hinging on a single individual?\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EAmerica\u0027s defense manufacturers are being asked to rebuild critical inventories at unprecedented speed, but the biggest challenges aren\u0027t always what you\u0027d expect. This month\u0027s SCL Spotlight examines the supply chain realities behind defense production ramps and the lessons every industry can learn about workforce knowledge, capacity planning, and resilience.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Discover the insights that can help you adapt, build resilience, and keep your organization moving."}],"uid":"27233","created_gmt":"2026-08-24 17:23:50","changed_gmt":"2026-08-26 18:15:29","author":"Andy Haleblian","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-08-26T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-08-26T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680979":{"id":"680979","type":"image","title":"The Hardest Ramp-Up in America: A Supply Chain View of the Defense Industrial Base","body":null,"created":"1787672277","gmt_created":"2026-08-25 15:37:57","changed":"1787672277","gmt_changed":"2026-08-25 15:37:57","alt":"Editorial illustration depicting the challenge of rapidly increasing U.S. defense manufacturing capacity. The image combines a connected national supply chain network map, large circular icons representing workforce, manufacturing, logistics, and quality assurance, an industrial chemical processing facility, a missile launch, a naval defense vessel at sea, skilled factory workers assembling munitions on a production line, and finished artillery rounds in the foreground.","file":{"fid":"265322","name":"spotlight-newsletter_SCThinRedLine_1254x1254px.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/08\/25\/spotlight-newsletter_SCThinRedLine_1254x1254px.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/08\/25\/spotlight-newsletter_SCThinRedLine_1254x1254px.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":223781,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/08\/25\/spotlight-newsletter_SCThinRedLine_1254x1254px.jpg?itok=L5aJVpO_"}},"674087":{"id":"674087","type":"image","title":"Chris Gaffney","body":"\u003Cp\u003EChris Gaffney\u003C\/p\u003E","created":"1717067903","gmt_created":"2024-05-30 11:18:23","changed":"1771883375","gmt_changed":"2026-02-23 21:49:35","alt":"Chris Gaffney, Managing Director, Georgia Tech Supply Chain and Logistics Institute","file":{"fid":"257557","name":"chris-gaffney_scl.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2024\/05\/30\/chris-gaffney_scl.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2024\/05\/30\/chris-gaffney_scl.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":129544,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2024\/05\/30\/chris-gaffney_scl.jpg?itok=_M0fOBTF"}}},"media_ids":["680979","674087"],"related_links":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.scl.gatech.edu\/news-events\/newsletters","title":"View past SCL newsletters and join our mailing list"},{"url":"https:\/\/www.scl.gatech.edu\/","title":"Georgia Tech Supply Chain and Logistics Institute"}],"groups":[{"id":"1250","name":"Center for Health and Humanitarian Systems (CHHS)"},{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"},{"id":"1243","name":"The Supply Chain and Logistics Institute (SCL)"}],"categories":[{"id":"42911","name":"Education"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"}],"keywords":[{"id":"194489","name":"scl-spot"},{"id":"167074","name":"Supply Chain"},{"id":"187190","name":"-go-gtmi"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39461","name":"Manufacturing, Trade, and Logistics"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":["info@scl.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"690868":{"#nid":"690868","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Logistics in Transition: What to Know, What to Watch, and How to Keep Moving","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EBy \u003C\/em\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/expert\/chris-gaffney\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EChris Gaffney\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cem\u003E, Managing Director of the Georgia Tech Supply Chain and Logistics Institute and a former Vice President of Global Strategic Supply Chain at The Coca-Cola Company.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EIn this article:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cul\u003E\u003Cli data-list-item-id=\u0022ed13dbb9bf72908398cb97fe89266003f\u0022\u003EWhy the relentlessness of change in logistics is a legitimate concern \u2014 not a complaint\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli data-list-item-id=\u0022e3b86c34b3fa5a085d70d3ad6966c9e9c\u0022\u003EStructural shifts reshaping the competitive floor\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli data-list-item-id=\u0022ec066ede3e1622b112d34df2b330f7a9d\u0022\u003EPredictions most leaders are still underweighting\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli data-list-item-id=\u0022eb96017cf9b196ac23bb69766030517cb\u0022\u003EWhat staying current actually requires of individuals and teams\u003Cbr\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ul\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EThe Weight of Constant Curveballs\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA few months ago, I caught up with a former colleague at an industry event. He is a senior leader at a large global company with a well-regarded supply chain organization. His team had been through a lot since we last talked. Port closures. Tariff escalations. Freight volatility. Inventory repositioning. The kinds of disruptions that used to arrive once in a cycle had become an avalanche, and this was before Hormuz!\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHis people had responded well. They had adapted. But now he was thinking about something harder to solve: \u0026nbsp;what it would take to keep them in the game longer term. The experience his team had gained came at a cost and he worried some would look for roles that were not on the \u201cfiring line\u201d. He also wondered whether he could still attract the best and brightest in the next generation of talent who would be looking at this field and asking whether the complexity was worth it.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat conversation has stayed with me. Supply chain and logistics has always been a field of cycles \u2014 demanding, but navigable. What has changed is that the field has moved from cyclical difficulty to something more structural: a persistent state of volatility where the curveballs do not stop coming.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat conversation was in the back of my mind as I developed a recent talk on logistics trends from 2026 to 2030 for GT SCL Industry Partner Manhattan\u2019s annual Momentum conference. The brief was to look ahead and be a bit provocative. What follows builds on that talk, but with a broader point in view: if the curveballs keep coming, leaders need a clearer sense of which shifts matter most and what they should do about them.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EThe New Operating Environment\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELogistics has entered a structurally more volatile era, not a groundbreaking insight given the last four years. Several things changed at roughly the same time, and they have not changed back:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESeveral shifts hit the industry at once, and none of them have meaningfully reversed. Geopolitics is now a supply chain design variable, not something to catch up on in a podcast. Strategic decoupling between China and the United States, instability in the Middle East, and the long shadow of the Russia-Ukraine conflict have pushed energy, sourcing, and network design into the same conversation. What once sat in the news feed now needs to be in the nominal scenario during business planning.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAt the same time, customer expectations have permanently shifted. Amazon reset the standard for visibility, precision, and speed, and that standard now applies even more as Amazon is emerging as an open source 3PL. Labor and energy costs have also changed the economics of physical logistics in ways that will not self-correct. Demographic pressure, wage inflation, and energy volatility have altered the baseline cost structure calling into question existing network locations.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMeanwhile, AI and automation have moved out of the experimental category and into the realm of near-term value creation. The tools are real, and organizations that understand where to apply them are making materially better decisions than those that do not. That matters because networks now have to optimize for two things at once: cost and recovery. Efficiency still matters, but a network that performs well in steady state and fails under disruption no longer meets the standard.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThere is also a macro pattern worth calling out: the industry is in a longer-duration rebalancing cycle than many executives expected. We examined the Hormuz disruption and its downstream effects in a recent SCL Spotlight piece. The short version is that energy pass-through effects, freight volatility, and extended planning uncertainty will impact costs and capacity well into 2027. Executives planning around a near-term return to normal are making a strategic error.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EThe next decade will reward adaptable logistics networks more than simply optimized ones.\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EThe Benchmark Has Changed \u2014 For Everyone\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAmazon\u0027s logistics operation is not just something to amaze us as packages arrive at our doorstep consistently with compressed lead times. It is a capability demonstration that has redefined what customers consider normal \u2014 same-day expectations, ETA precision, real-time visibility, low-friction returns. The important implication is not that every organization needs to replicate Amazon\u0027s infrastructure. It is that Amazon-shaped expectations are now the standard against which every supply chain is measured, whether or not Amazon is a direct competitor. Amazon\u2019s recent announcement that it is making its capabilities available to all only raises the bar.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOrganizations that understand this have shifted their strategic question from \u0022how do we improve our operations\u0022 to \u0022where will we compete, where will we leverage others\u0027 capabilities, and where will we differentiate on something Amazon cannot replicate.\u0022 The benchmark is no longer functional excellence alone. It is well oiled end-to-end execution.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EThe Real Automation Story: Error-Proofing Over Spectacle\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThere is a version of the automation conversation that focuses on \u0026nbsp;\u201cwow\u201d demos \u2014 autonomous vehicles, lights-out warehouses, robotics showcases. That version makes for compelling conference content. It is also not where most of the real value is being created today.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe highest-value wins tend to be quieter: fewer errors, fewer touches, fewer injuries, fewer claims. Computer vision that catches a loading error before a truck leaves the dock. Sensor verification that eliminates a reconciliation step. An alert from a Machine Learning model that prevents a cascading service failure. These are error-proofing stories, and they are compelling because the ROI is measurable in terms operations leaders understand.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe reason automation is scaling in these areas is not novelty \u2014 it is because the math finally works, driven by labor scarcity, safety pressure, and the compounding cost of variability. My own view informed by industry contacts and academic researchers is that computer vision may become one of the most quietly transformative technologies of this decade, not because it is the most advanced, but because it applies to so many high-variability, human-intensive touchpoints across logistics operations.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThat said, a high percentage of large-scale automation efforts still fail. \u0026nbsp;Many of the reasons are well known and tackling this issue is critical for those who do not yet have a model for success.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EThe next margin pool may come more from consistency and reliability than from flashy robotics demonstrations.\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis theme generated significant discussion at the Manhattan Associates\u0027 Momentum conference this spring \u2014 enough that we are dedicating our July SCL webinar to it directly. If your organization is navigating automation decisions, the session is worth your time.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EAutonomy: Watch the Middle Mile Before the Long Haul\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAutonomous vehicle technology has generated significant hype and its share of missed timelines. A more realistic view is emerging. Autonomy scales first where variability is lowest, economics are clearest, and environments are most constrained \u2014 yard operations, middle-mile freight on repetitive lanes, internal shuttles, port drayage, and warehouse orchestration. This amounts to millions of miles and load counts that are increasing daily.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe organizations watching this most carefully are not asking when full autonomy will arrive. They are asking which specific lanes and operations have the cost structure where autonomy pays out today. One dynamic worth watching: the scaling of urban robotaxi operations is building safety data, insurance frameworks, and regulatory precedent that may indirectly accelerate confidence in middle-mile freight and warehouse applications.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe shift that matters is not from no autonomy to full autonomy. It is from technology demonstrations to lane economics \u2014 and that is the transition that creates real operating decisions for logistics leaders.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EAI Is Real \u2014 But Workflow Discipline Matters More Than Tool Selection\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe common reality in most logistics organizations today includes AI copilots, workflow assistance tools, exception management support, improved ETA prediction, and document automation. These are useful. They are also early.\u003Cbr\u003EWhat is still uncommon: autonomous execution, fully integrated AI decisioning across functions, self-optimizing networks, and end-to-end agentic orchestration. Those capabilities exist in pilots and in forward-leaning early adopters. They are not yet standard operating practice in most organizations.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe framing that I keep coming back to is this: start with a broken logistics workflow, then apply the lightest AI capable of clearing a hard ROI threshold. I got a text from a mentee today that showed a picture of a Microsoft Co-pilot Studio agent he built that automates a daily inventory check on a critical SKU. Organizations that start by selecting the most impressive tool and then look for a process to apply it to are making the investment in the wrong order.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThere is another structural shift worth highlighting. The industry has moved out of data scarcity and is living in decision overload. The challenge is not access to information \u2014 it is building the discipline to convert that information into insight and informed decisions at the right time to impact action.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELogistics first, AI second. Start with the broken workflow. Then apply the lightest tool that clears a hard ROI threshold.\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EThe Rising Value of Human Judgment\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBack to the conversation I opened with. The concern was not that my friend\u2019s team lacked technical skills \u2014 it was sustaining engagement and attracting talent to a field that had become genuinely exhausting. That challenge is real, and it is connected to something missed in the automation conversation.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs AI automates more routine work \u2014 reporting, documentation, tracking, reconciliation \u2014 the work that remains becomes more demanding in different ways. The value shifts toward judgment: escalation management, cross-functional orchestration, interpreting second-order consequences, maintaining trust when the data is ambiguous. The organizations that will attract and retain the strongest professionals are not necessarily those with the most advanced tools. They are the ones that create conditions where smart people make consequential decisions and continue to grow.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAs AI capabilities become more democratized across the industry, the differentiating capabilities will increasingly be leadership, communication, collaboration, and the kind of critical thinking that no tool can fully replicate.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EPredictions Leaders Should Keep an Eye On\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThese are the shifts I believe deserve more attention than they are getting in most leadership conversations:\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Col\u003E\u003Cli data-list-item-id=\u0022eb3990583ba42d892b8c0da99a5b8b02c\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EThe Next Major Logistics Disruption May Come From Energy, Not Freight\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EGrid strain, electrification demand, AI compute infrastructure buildout, and charging capacity constraints are converging in ways that could reshape logistics economics faster than expected. Power availability is not yet a front-burner strategic issue for most logistics leaders. It should be.\u003Cbr\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli data-list-item-id=\u0022ef437499f47298f3ed4f1703bea6703d9\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAmazon, Walmart, and Chinese Platforms May Become Competing Logistics Operating Systems\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ECompetition is shifting from retailer vs. retailer to ecosystem vs. ecosystem. The organizations that do not think clearly about which ecosystems they are part of, and on what terms, may find themselves structurally disadvantaged.\u003Cbr\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli data-list-item-id=\u0022eb276d917f66951b5152b3a81b772f51b\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECyber Attacks on Physical Supply Chains Will Become a Defining Executive Risk\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EAs logistics networks become more connected, more automated, and more AI-dependent, your exposure grows. The distinction between cyber risk and operational risk is collapsing. This belongs on the executive agenda as a strategic issue, not just an IT issue.\u003Cbr\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli data-list-item-id=\u0022e50bc6a738d71eec2c18b650738e464af\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ETrusted Operational Data May Become the Most Valuable Logistics Asset\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EOrganizations with clean, well-governed operational data will be able to move fast on AI adoption. Organizations with fragmented, inconsistent data will face a structural disadvantage that no AI investment can overcome. Data discipline is a strategic investment, not a cleanup project.\u003Cbr\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli data-list-item-id=\u0022e6313c2ad5ac7b88704dd03357ed8a40e\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EInsurance Companies May Quietly Become Gatekeepers of Automation Adoption\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EScaling autonomy and connected logistics infrastructure depends as much on insurability, liability frameworks, and safety validation as on technical capability. Insurance market dynamics will shape the adoption curve for autonomous operations in ways that are not yet widely discussed in logistics circles.\u003Cbr\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/li\u003E\u003Cli data-list-item-id=\u0022ef08414480855d8814fc8a6671baff198\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EThe Industry May Shift From \u0022Lowest Cost\u0022 to \u0022Fastest Recovery\u0022 as the Defining Competitive Dimensio\u003C\/strong\u003En\u003Cbr\u003EPure cost optimization as a primary network design principle may increasingly underperform against resilience and recovery speed as the basis of competition. The organizations that have already internalized this are building different networks than those still optimizing for cost alone.\u003C\/li\u003E\u003C\/ol\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EWhat Staying Current Actually Requires\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI want to close by coming back to my colleague\u0027s concern \u2014 and to the question he was really asking: how do we help our people process all of this and remain effective?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHere is my honest answer. The field is not going to slow down. \u003Cstrong\u003EWhat staying current requires is not reading every article or attending every conference. It requires developing a point of view on the shifts that matter most for your specific context, and then actively deciding how you will act and adjust\u003C\/strong\u003E. Passive awareness is not enough. The question is not whether you know what is changing. It is what you have decided to do about it.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor organizations, that means investing in conditions that allow talented people to keep learning. For individuals, it means resisting the temptation to treat busyness as a substitute for development. The professionals who remain most valuable will be those who continue to understand what is changing and develop the judgment to translate that understanding into better decisions.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EYou cannot sit still. The question is not whether you know what is changing. It is what you have decided to do about it.\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Ch2\u003EThe Opportunity on the Other Side\u003C\/h2\u003E\u003Cp\u003EI want to end where I began \u2014 with empathy for everyone in this field who is carrying a lot right now. Fatigue is real. The complexity is real. The ongoing intensity is real.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAnd so is the opportunity.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELogistics is no longer just moving product. It is becoming a resilience system, a customer experience system, a technology system, an energy system, and a real-time decision system simultaneously. The professionals who learn to navigate that complexity \u2014 who develop both technical fluency and human judgment \u2014 will be among the most valuable people in any organization.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe future arrives not as one dramatic breakthrough, but as a sequence of operational readthroughs: decisions made well, workflows redesigned thoughtfully, capabilities built deliberately. That is hard work. It is also genuinely exciting work. And I believe the best of it is still ahead.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch3\u003ERelated Upcoming SCL Webinar 7\/2\/2026\u003C\/h3\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/gatech.zoom.us\/webinar\/register\/2117803348049\/WN_528KNX2LRFWvO3bZXYaYtg\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhy Do So Many Automation Projects Fail?\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr\u003EAutomation in logistics is accelerating \u2014 but so is the gap between what is promised and what is delivered. Systems get sized on optimistic assumptions. Hidden dependencies become single points of failure. Technology that shines in the demo struggles under real operating conditions.\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cbr\u003ELeaders from Georgia Tech\u0027s Supply Chain and Logistics Institute join industry practitioners to dig into the root causes of automation underperformance \u2014 and the design, evaluation, and implementation practices that build more resilient, effective operations.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/gatech.zoom.us\/webinar\/register\/2117803348049\/WN_528KNX2LRFWvO3bZXYaYtg\u0022\u003ERegister Online to attend via Zoom\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr\u003E\u003Cem\u003ECan\u0027t attend live? Register anyway, and we\u0027ll send you the recording afterward\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ELogistics isn\u0027t just changing \u2014 it\u2019s being redefined by constant disruption, rising expectations, and new technology. This SCL Spotlight breaks down the biggest shifts shaping the next decade and what leaders must do to stay ahead. Discover the insights that can help you adapt, build resilience, and keep your organization moving.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Discover the insights that can help you adapt, build resilience, and keep your organization moving."}],"uid":"27233","created_gmt":"2026-06-22 21:33:45","changed_gmt":"2026-08-25 15:56:39","author":"Andy Haleblian","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-06-23T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-06-23T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680492":{"id":"680492","type":"image","title":"Logistics in Transition","body":null,"created":"1782163725","gmt_created":"2026-06-22 21:28:45","changed":"1782163725","gmt_changed":"2026-06-22 21:28:45","alt":"Promotional graphic titled \u2018SCL Spotlight: Logistics in Transition: What to Know, What to Watch, and How to Keep Moving,\u2019 featuring a global supply chain scene with a cargo ship at port, a truck on a highway, a warehouse robot, and an airplane overhead, overlaid with digital icons for visibility, resilience, and adaptability.","file":{"fid":"264762","name":"spotlight-newsletter_LogInTransition_202606.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/06\/22\/spotlight-newsletter_LogInTransition_202606.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/06\/22\/spotlight-newsletter_LogInTransition_202606.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":167439,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/06\/22\/spotlight-newsletter_LogInTransition_202606.jpg?itok=i2cx834H"}},"674087":{"id":"674087","type":"image","title":"Chris Gaffney","body":"\u003Cp\u003EChris Gaffney\u003C\/p\u003E","created":"1717067903","gmt_created":"2024-05-30 11:18:23","changed":"1771883375","gmt_changed":"2026-02-23 21:49:35","alt":"Chris Gaffney, Managing Director, Georgia Tech Supply Chain and Logistics Institute","file":{"fid":"257557","name":"chris-gaffney_scl.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2024\/05\/30\/chris-gaffney_scl.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2024\/05\/30\/chris-gaffney_scl.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":129544,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2024\/05\/30\/chris-gaffney_scl.jpg?itok=_M0fOBTF"}}},"media_ids":["680492","674087"],"related_links":[{"url":"https:\/\/gatech.zoom.us\/webinar\/register\/2117803348049\/WN_528KNX2LRFWvO3bZXYaYtg","title":"Related SCL webinar 7\/2\/2026 \u0022Why Do So Many Automation Projects Fail?\u0022"},{"url":"https:\/\/www.scl.gatech.edu\/news-events\/newsletters","title":"View past SCL newsletters and join our mailing list"},{"url":"https:\/\/www.scl.gatech.edu\/","title":"Georgia Tech Supply Chain and Logistics Institute"}],"groups":[{"id":"1250","name":"Center for Health and Humanitarian Systems (CHHS)"},{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"},{"id":"1243","name":"The Supply Chain and Logistics Institute (SCL)"}],"categories":[{"id":"42911","name":"Education"},{"id":"145","name":"Engineering"}],"keywords":[{"id":"2556","name":"artificial intelligence"},{"id":"194489","name":"scl-spot"},{"id":"167074","name":"Supply Chain"},{"id":"187190","name":"-go-gtmi"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39461","name":"Manufacturing, Trade, and Logistics"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[],"email":["info@scl.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}},"691239":{"#nid":"691239","#data":{"type":"news","title":"iExperience Camp Gives High School Students a Hands-On Introduction to Industrial Engineering\u00a0","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ELast month, rising 9th\u201312th grade students spent four days discovering how industrial engineers solve problems at the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/case.isye.gatech.edu\/engagement-initiatives\/iexperience\u0022\u003EiExperience\u003C\/a\u003E Camp, hosted by the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/case.isye.gatech.edu\/inside-case\/about-us\u0022\u003ECenter for Academics, Success, and Engagement (CASE)\u003C\/a\u003E in \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EGeorgia Tech\u003C\/a\u003E\u2019s \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EH. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE)\u003C\/a\u003E. The camp blended campus life at Georgia Tech with real-world exposure to industrial engineering in practice.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDesigned as both an academic and professional exploration experience, the camp gave students a structured look at how industrial engineering works in the real world, far beyond textbooks and classroom examples. Each day combined on-campus learning sessions, collaborative project work, and industry site visits highlighting different applications of industrial engineering and systems thinking.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EA Week of Learning by Doing\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe program opened on Monday, June 15th, where students participated in welcome activities, icebreakers, and an introduction to \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/admission.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EGeorgia Tech admissions\u003C\/a\u003E. The first day focused on building community while giving students an early sense of what studying \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/coe.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003Eengineering at Georgia Tech\u003C\/a\u003E looks like.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAfter a campus tour and lunch at the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/studentcenter.gatech.edu\/student-center\u0022\u003EJohn Lewis Student Center\u003C\/a\u003E, students visited the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/xr.isye.gatech.edu\/\u0022\u003EAllen-Davidson-Coleman XR Makerspace\u003C\/a\u003E at Georgia Tech and other lab spaces, getting hands-on exposure to emerging technologies. In the afternoon, students were introduced to their group projects and began preparing to synthesize the week\u2019s learning into final presentations.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EIndustry in Action: Site Visits Across Atlanta\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EMidweek, the program shifted to industry immersion through visits to organizations applying industrial engineering in different contexts.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAt \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.mckenneys.com\/\u0022\u003EMcKenney\u2019s\u003C\/a\u003E, students saw how industrial engineers support construction and facilities systems and heard from Georgia Tech alumni working in the field. A facility tour connected industrial engineering concepts to real building operations.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAt the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.coca-colacompany.com\/careers\/location\u0022\u003ECoca-Cola Company headquarters\u003C\/a\u003E visit, students explored the role of industrial engineering in global supply chains. ISyE alumni \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/jonathan-yang18\/\u0022\u003EJohnny Yang\u003C\/a\u003E (B.S. 2021), Supply Chain Manager for Innovation Planning \u0026amp; Sourcing Optimization, and \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/sana-fathima-40720188\/\u0022\u003ESana Fathima\u003C\/a\u003E (B.S. 2017, M.S. 2018), Senior Manager of Supply Chain Infrastructure Planning, explained how data drives bottling, distribution, and retail placement decisions across a global network.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAt \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.ncratleos.com\/\u0022\u003ENCR Atleos\u003C\/a\u003E, students explored the ins and outs of ATM machines while hearing from GT IE alumni employees and current Georgia Tech interns about how industrial engineering improves reliability, user experience, and system integration.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe site visits concluded at the \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.mckinsey.com\/capabilities\/operations\/how-we-help-clients\/innovation-and-learning-centers\/our-centers\/atlanta\u0022\u003EMcKinsey Innovation \u0026amp; Learning Center\u003C\/a\u003E, where students learned lean principles and waste reduction through a hands-on SMED (Single-Minute Exchange of Die) activity. They also observed advanced tools such as wearable scanners and automation technologies used to improve process efficiency.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBuilding Ideas into Presentations\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThroughout the week, students worked in groups to connect what they learned from each site visit and campus experience. These project sessions challenged them to identify where industrial engineering was present in each organization and articulate its impact.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOn the final day, Thursday, June 18th, students finalized their projects and prepared for the family showcase held in the ISyE Main Atrium. Each group presented on either one of the four companies visited or ISyE\u2019s XR Makerspace, explaining how industrial engineering principles appeared in real-world operations and reflecting on key insights from the week.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe final presentations served as both a capstone and a celebration. Students demonstrated not only what they had learned about industrial engineering, but also how they could communicate technical ideas clearly and connect them to real-world scenarios.\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFamilies, mentors, and Georgia Tech staff attended the showcase, creating an environment that highlighted both student achievement and the broader mission of the program: making industrial engineering accessible for the next generation of engineers.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELooking Ahead\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe iExperience Summer Camp showed students how industrial engineering shapes industries ranging from construction and manufacturing to technology and global supply chains. More importantly, it gave them a glimpse into what studying engineering at Georgia Tech can feel like.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor many participants, the week was less about choosing a single future path and more about discovering the wide range of ways industrial engineers make systems work better, smarter, and more efficiently across the world.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThe camp blended campus life at Georgia Tech with real-world exposure to industrial engineering in practice.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"The camp blended campus life at Georgia Tech with real-world exposure to industrial engineering in practice.\u00a0"}],"uid":"36760","created_gmt":"2026-07-24 16:50:56","changed_gmt":"2026-08-21 22:30:47","author":"jsmith830","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","location":"Atlanta, GA","dateline":{"date":"2026-07-24T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2026-07-24T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"680667":{"id":"680667","type":"image","title":"iExperience Camp Site Visit ","body":"\u003Cp\u003EiExperience Camp Site Visit\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","created":"1784912252","gmt_created":"2026-07-24 16:57:32","changed":"1784912252","gmt_changed":"2026-07-24 16:57:32","alt":"iExperience Camp Site Visit ","file":{"fid":"264958","name":"webIMG_2363.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/07\/24\/webIMG_2363.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2026\/07\/24\/webIMG_2363.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":577495,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2026\/07\/24\/webIMG_2363.jpg?itok=8O94cv0k"}}},"media_ids":["680667"],"related_links":[{"url":"https:\/\/case.isye.gatech.edu\/engagement-initiatives\/iexperience","title":"  iExperience is a CASE initiative that exposes high school students to the programs and services offered through ISyE"}],"groups":[{"id":"660354","name":"Center for Academics, Success, and Engagement"},{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"},{"id":"1243","name":"The Supply Chain and Logistics Institute (SCL)"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"187915","name":"go-researchnews"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETiffany Ng,\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EStudent Assistant\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}