EMIL

Intel and EMIL Set The Stage
For The Future Of Supply Chain Optimization

By Terri Herod, EMIL Managing Director

In a move that may transform how companies address supply chain management, Intel® Corporation has teamed up with Georgia Tech's EMIL program, a master's degree program that helps the world's leading companies develop creative, global logistics solutions by grooming their supply network executives. The objective of this collaboration: to create cutting edge supply chain modeling and simulation tools.

Intel and EMIL have a strong relationship that dates back to the program's inception in 1999. Intel executives have served on the EMIL Advisory Board and have sponsored executives as EMIL participants since 2000. "Intel has chosen to invest in EMIL because it helps us to have a world-class supply network and to take full advantage of changes in the economy and respond quickly to any and all opportunities," said Cindie Kienitz, Worldwide transportation Manager of Intel Corporation.

Now, Intel and EMIL are teaming to support global supply chain innovation and state-of-the-art research. In October 2003, the Intel © Innovation & Education Program granted Georgia Tech's School of Industrial & Systems Engineering (ISyE) $30,000 in computer hardware, including 3.06GHz Workstation 650s with Intel Xeon^TM Processors, for use in the school's ongoing distributed supply chain research spearheaded by Dr. Leon McGinnis, Georgia Tech's Eugine C. Gwaltney Chair in Manufacturing Systems. In tandem, EMIL's Advisory Board approved funding through the EMIL Scholars Program to support faculty research on the same topic. By combining Intel's super-fast processors with Georgia Tech's mathematical and engineering expertise, this collaborative effort will explore the newest frontier in supply chain solutions.

As an established industry leader, Intel has always pushed the envelop with its "One Generation Ahead" strategy that gives corporations access to future Intel technology. This approach of staying one step ahead of its competitors has made Intel one of the most innovative and visionary corporations in the industry today. Applying this approach to supply chain management, Intel is committed to keeping itself and its customers "One Generation Ahead" in this arena as well. This recent grant and its associated research funding represent a critical step in fostering a quantum change in supply network optimization — made possible through the advent of Intel's faster processing technology.

"By increasing the depth of the relationship between EMIL and Intel, we are building new capabilities that will allow us to model our businesses as never before," stated Jim Kellso, Manager of Supply Network Research at Intel Corporation . "Georgia Tech excels in the engineering and mathematical expertise needed to analyze supply networks while Intel offers the advanced technology needed to make complex simulations possible."

The distributed simulation modeling approach under development with the Intel technology will enable companies to model and manage the unpredictability of their supply chain with greater ease, accuracy, and speed than ever before. In this research effort, individual supply chain elements are represented via independent simulation models capable of communicating with one another, much as factories and warehouses communicate. They can then pass material to one another through transport systems that are similarly modeled as independent simulations. These simulation models, while running on different computers, communicate with one another over the internet using High Level Architecture (HLA), a software infrastructure for support of distributed simulations.

The goal of the research is to create a means for testing diverse supply chain strategies and operational tactics under different scenarios in order to discover which strategy is likely to achieve the best performance. Eventually, the simulation methodology developed could be integrated with rough-cut analytic tools for faster analysis and decision-making.

"In the future, the simulation tools we develop will enable companies to make solid, informed supply chain decisions in real-time," said Dr. McGinnis. "Instead of reacting to unexpected events with 'back of the envelope' supply chain adjustments, managers will be able to simply 'plug in' various alternatives, run the distributed simulations and choose the most effective, affordable option."



• Winter 2003 Engineering Enterprise Table of Contents
• Engineering Enterprise Home Page



Web Site © Copyright 2020 by Lionheart Publishing, Inc. and ISyE, Georgia Institute of Technology. All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher.


Lionheart Publishing, Inc.
34 Hillside Ave
Phone: +44 23 8110 3411 |
E-mail:
Web: www.lionheartpub.com

ISyE / Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30332-0205
|
Web: www.isye.gatech.edu