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In April 2018 more than 150 researchers from 16 different countries convened at MIT for the second SCALE Latin American Conference on Supply Chain Management and Logistics (SCM&L). This edited book presents 18 papers on SCML in Latin America which emerged from this conference. As a region with more than 640 million people, and an economy that grows faster than those of developed regions, Latin America is the subject of large infrastructure projects and heightened interest from multinational companies. With contributors spanning eleven different countries, and comprising MIT faculty and researchers, and academics from prestigious Latin American institutions, this collection covers a variety of relevant topics in SCM&L for the region, and also addresses its lack of cases and applied examples. With cases from Argentina, Ecuador, Mexico, and Paraguay, this book breaks fresh ground by looking at risk analysis, and small firms supply chain management. Making a solid contribution to the regional needs for SCM&L literature for education, research, and practice, this book is relevant to researchers and professionals living and operating in the region, as well as in developing economies beyond.

Latin America is a well recognized and growing market, but its poor infrastructure, explosive urbanization, expensive and inefficient logistics, and multiple social problems continue to pose major problems to logistics professionals and academics. The uniqueness and complexity of these issues have long daunted scholars, and there remains an important gap in the literature around Latin American supply chain management and logistics (SCM&L). Supply Chain Management and Logistics in Latin America brings together leading scholars across Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, and the USA in order to address this gap. The chapters collected here, all of which are drawn from selected papers presented at the 2016 MIT SCALE Latin American Conference on Logistics and Supply Chain Management, offer perspectives from five different countries—Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and Peru—and provide insights into cases and new methods written by people who have faced the challenges they discuss. The authors cover a broad range of subjects: in addition to general contributions to qualitative and quantitative methods in supply chain management and coverage of cases of global importance such as the Panama Canal expansion, they offer insights into regionally specific problems around freight corridors in Colombia, reverse logistics and recycling in Colombia, supply risk management in Colombia, and socially oriented logistics in low-income communities in Peru. Since Latin America is one of the most urbanized regions in the world, with about eighty percent of the population living in cities, questions around urban logistics also receive heavy coverage, with four chapters discussing issues unique to very high-density cities and megacities such as São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Bogotá, and Quito. For its explorations of important themes, methods, and local topics within a crucial and ever-expanding market, Supply Chain Management and Logistics in Latin America is a valuable resource for educators, researchers, and practitioners.