Cuba May Be Reverse Logistics Star

John E. Bell, Ph.D., The University of Tennessee, observed in a recent paper that Cuba may not need outside expertise to cope with future supply chain problems.

“How can you manage scarcity in your supply chain?” he asks. “One extreme example of operating under resource scarcity already exists in Cuba where businesses are faced daily with a lack of food, medicine, electricity, and raw material.”

Although February 2012 marked the 50th anniversary of the U.S. embargo, Bell notes that the economy in Cuba continues to operate through the “ingenuity” of its people.

Cuba has created supply chains that re-use and recycle almost everything, despite the lack of government-mandated recycling programs. Such adaptation may be a hint of the type of closed loop supply chains needed in the near future.

More on this subject can be found in my opinion piece for MarketWatch.

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