NITL today launched its new web-based magazine Supply Chain Perspectives. This is a new peer-reviewed publication aims to create awareness about leading edge supply chain management (SCM) and logistics themes among practitioners in this field. It will also keep readers informed of key developments in NITL and in the wider Irish SCM community. The first issue will appear on NITL’s website in May 09.

NITL invites SCM academics, consultants and practitioners to submit ideas for articles and/or news features to the magazine’s editor Edward Sweeney (edward.sweeney@dit.ie). All ideas will be considered but those which relate to the role of logistics and SCM in the current volatile economic environment are particularly welcome (for areas of specific interest click here). NITL is conscious that there are many academic journals, as well as trade magazines, in this field. The aim of this magazine is to make leading edge thinking and scholarship accessible to a mainly practitioner audience, thus addressing an important niche in the market.

Supply Chain Perspectives replaces Logistics Solutions which NITL published for almost a decade. Whilst the overall aim and audience of the new publication will remain similar the name change reflects a change in emphasis. Firstly, the new magazine will not be confined to purely transportation and logistics issues; rather, it will adopt a wider SCM outlook. NITL regards logistics as just one - albeit hugely important - element in the supply chain. Secondly, the word “Perspectives” has deliberately been included in the title to indicate that there are few “rights” and “wrongs” in relation to strategic SCM and logistics. Each article’s contributor brings his/her own unique insights based on the nature of their experience. These insights of all of value and the challenge for the reader is to relate the different emphases and priorities inherent in these perspectives to their own challenges and strategic imperatives.