New era dawns for supply chain management
By Susan Burtch
For a relatively young department, VCU’s Supply Chain Management has already racked up the honors. This year, the department was ranked in the top 50 institutions for research productivity among over 400 universities world-wide. At #42, VCU is in the same company as other top universities.
“Our whole group worked really hard on this,” says Department Chair Jeff Smith. “I want to raise awareness that supply chain is a viable field, and we’re doing really well in it.”
The productivity ranking is in the Supply Chain Management (SCM) Journal List, which is a database maintained by MIT. Typically, supply chain journal articles focus on quantitative analysis (which employs analytical modeling) or empirical analysis (which uses actual data). VCU professors publish articles in both areas, but the recent ranking only accounts for the empirical articles. To date, the SCMA VCU faculty research has addressed issues on sustainability, the impact of COVID on supply chain performance, and equitable scheduling in health care organizations.
“This excellent ranking is largely because of the emphasis we’re putting on research,” explains Smith. “In 2016, we were ranked #240. Now we want to make sure we’re targeting the top journals in the field. In the past, wherever we published was fine. Lately we’re focused on the most relevant journals, so as a result, we are more widely seen and better perceived.”
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