EXPERT ON BUSINESS’S VULNERABILITY TO TERRORISM WILL SPEAK AT MONTREAL CONFERENCE (May 10, 2002)

EVENT The Impact of Global Terrorism, Natural Disasters, and Other Disruptions on Supply Chain Management with MIT Professor Yossi Sheffi

DATE Monday, May 20

TIME 8 – 9 AM

PLACE Hilton Montreal Bonaventure

Like hurricanes, earthquakes, massive chemical spills, and other disasters, acts of terrorism disrupt the supply chain for companies around the world. Managers are challenged to readjust relations with suppliers and customers, contend with transportation shortages, and revamp inventory management strategies. Dr. Yossi Sheffi will explore ways that companies and managers can prepare to handle supply chain disruptions.

Dr. Sheffi is an expert in operations research, logistics, supply chain management, and e-commerce. Professor and Director of the Center for Transportation Studies at MIT, Sheffi has founded five companies, including Syncra, a developer of B-to-B collaboration software, and Logistics.com. In December he was profiled by Wired magazine in an article "The Trucker and the Professor," available online at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/sheffi.html

The lecture is being given at an INFORMS conference, "Analyzing and Enhancing the Extended Enterprise," which takes place at the Hilton Montreal Bonaventure from May 19 – 21. Information about the conference is online at http://www2.informs.org/Conf/Practice2002

INFORMS is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®) is an international scientific society with over 10,000 members dedicated to applying scientific methods to aid decision-making, management, and operations. Members of INFORMS work in business, government, and academia. They are represented in fields as diverse as airlines, health care, law enforcement, the military, the stock market, and telecommunications. 2002 is the 50th anniversary of organized operations research in the United States. 1952 was the year that the journal Operations Research and the Operations Research Society of America, one of the founding societies of INFORMS, were born. The INFORMS website is at http://www.informs.org.