A VC in Vacationland

Boy, the guys at MIT really do think in different dimensions than the rest of us supply chain geeks.  Olivier de Weck, associate professor of aeronautics and astronomics and engineering systems (these genius’s also have longer titles than the rest of us) and David Simchi-Levi, professor of engineering systems and civil and environmental engineering, have created SpaceNet.  SpaceNet is a software application that models supply chains to deliver oxygen, food, fuel, exploration equipment and construction/repair parts into space.  Version 1.3 was just announced in late March.

David Simchi-Levi, perhaps better known recently for the $15million he and his wife made selling LogicTools to ILOG, along with de Weck, led a team comprised of MIT students and research staff from California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Lab.  NASA funded the project.

The software determines the ability of the delivery vehicles to carry various types of cargo, simulates traffic flows of vehicles and supplies around delivery schedules and calculates fuel and time required to deliver the cargo.

The cool part of the software is that it is not just about deliveries to the International Space Station, but also to the moon and other planets, Mars in particular. Having said that, the software uses many of the same principles used by manufacturers, distributors and retailers in modeling earth-bound supply chains, except that lead times are a bit longer–up to nine months, and conventional modes of transport are not used (think Saturn rockets).

Perhaps Yossi Sheffi, the entrepreneurial MIT professor of engineering, supply chain and making big bucks selling supply chain start ups (sorry, Yossi, I couldn’t resist) will be the first to offer a degree in Space Logistics & Supply Chain.  It is not as far fetched a degree as one might think and I suspect it may exist sometime in the next decade.  Until then, us earthly supply chain types will just have to be content shuffling products around bound by the laws of gravity.