William J. DeWitt III Executive, Director and Professor of the Practice of Transportation, Transportation Institute at the University of Denver

https://www.du.edu/transportation
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William J. DeWitt III

Transportation and logistics organizations, successful in 2017 and beyond, will proactively transfer the capabilities of the departing generation to following generations. Generation “X,” and “Y,” and Millennials are magicians with data and analytics. They are not as strong on the context, framework, “why,” and unintended consequences of the decisions that might be indicated by the analysis and modeling from data.

The transportation and logistics world will see as much upheaval and turmoil in 2017 as has been seen in the past. There may also be opportunities as seen in the support for long-overdue infrastructure repair and build. All of this indicates a decision making environment that will not be able to extrapolate from the past. Future success for transportation and logistics will come from a conscious effort to share experience, seasoning, insights, and wisdom so that it is not lost, while making decisions for the future as accurate and successful as possible.

This transfer or sharing can be done through internal “challenge” sessions where context, underlying causes, and potential unintended consequences are shared and explored between generations. Short courses for this goal could be created by academic and trade institutions and attended by the generations that will become the next leaders in a world with increasing rates of change.

Over the last 20 years, the use in the classroom of trade periodicals, such as The Journal of Commerce, and its former sister publication Traffic World; American Shipper; and Inbound Logistics, have been and are a superb resource for expanding knowledge and awareness. Their articles have been excellent material for case studies about the “why” and context/framework of an issue. Supporting access to these types of publications and fostering “challenge” sessions built around an article or issue can increase the potential of better future decisions by the next generations.