A few years ago the faculty of the Graduate School of Business Administration at Michigan State University responded to a developing industry need for young people trained with an understanding of the interfaces between physical distribution, manufacturing and purchasing. In 1980 the Materials Logistics Management Programme (MLM) was established to meet this industry requirement. Students of the MLM programme have been in great demand by industry since the programme's inception. For the past two years MLM graduates have received the highest starting salaries of all MSU business graduates. This article presents an overview of the MLM philosophy that has emerged as the programme matured.