Luxembourg supply chain center appoints new director

Benny Mantin, a professor of supply chain management, has been appointed director of the Luxembourg Centre for Logistics and Supply Chain Management (LCL), a cooperative effort between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and the Luxembourg government. He began his position on January 1, 2017.

The LCL was established in December 2015 to further teaching, research, and knowledge transfer in logistics, which Luxembourg has designated as one of its "economic priority sectors." Its mission is to train supply chain experts, conduct leading-edge research, and be a valuable partner for the business community. The center is currently developing a master's program, which is scheduled to start with the 2017-2018 academic year.

Mantin will lead the growing activities of the LCL, which is located within the Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance at the University of Luxembourg.

"I am thrilled to join the LCL and have this unique opportunity of establishing and shaping a new academic group that will strive for excellence in both research and education as well as partnerships with industry," Mantin said in a statement. "The cooperation with MIT supports us in designing educational programs and academic platforms that will ultimately position us as a leading institution in the field of logistics and supply chain management."

Mantin started working at the LCL in September 2016 under an expert contract. Prior to joining the LCL, he was an associate professor at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. Mantin previously held the Jean-Jacques Laffont Chair on the Digital Economy at the Toulouse School of Economics and the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, France, as well as visiting positions at Kyoto University in Japan, Kühne Logistics University in Hamburg, Germany, and the WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management in Vallendar, Germany. He graduated with a PhD in Management Science from the University of British Columbia in Canada in 2008.

The LCL forms part of the MIT's Global Supply Chain and Logistics Excellence (SCALE) Network, an international alliance of research and education centers dedicated to supply chain and logistics excellence through innovation. The network includes centers in Boston, Massachusetts; Bogotá, Colombia; Ningbo, China; Shah Alam, Malaysia; and Zaragoza, Spain.