Michigan State ranks first in supply chain articles

No need to worry about writer's block at Michigan State University (MSU): A study conducted by Soonhong Min of The University of Oklahoma has found that academics from Michigan State University had more articles published in leading supply chain journals from 2000 through 2006 than those from any other university. MSU tallied 52 articles; the University of Tennessee came in second with 39 articles, followed by The Ohio State University with 32. Cranfield University in the United Kingdom came in fourth place with 28. (See the list below.)

Dr. Min studied the publication record to find out which institutions around the globe were contributing the most to the advancement of supply chain knowledge and its dissemination. He looked at four publications: Journal of Business Logistics, Supply Chain Management Review, International Journal of Physical Distribution and Logistics, and International Journal of Logistics Management. He found that authors from 297 colleges and universities from 34 countries contributed at least once to those journals. North American institutions accounted for 154 of that total. Institutions in Europe and Australia accounted for the other 143 colleges.

Min began his research as a followup to an earlier assessment of supply chain education by Stephen Rutner of Georgia Southern University and Stanley Fawcett of Brigham Young University. Rutner's and Young's report, which appeared in Supply Chain Management Review, surveyed educators and practitioners about supply chain programs. The article then ranked those programs based on the survey responses. In that initial study, which was limited to North American institutions, Penn State University was ranked first and The University of Tennessee second in terms of supply chain education.

[Source: "The State of Supply Chain Education—Revisited and Updated" (unpublished paper), Soonhong Min, The University of Oklahoma, 2007.]