Publications & Videos

The success of e-commerce continues to push the bounds of delivery services as customers expect near instant fulfillment at little additional cost. This demand for delivery performance and operational cost efficiency has led to the exploration of the last-mile delivery problem using creative multimodal delivery systems. One promising system consists...

The contract manufacturing industry is growing and shifting from standard products to highly customized engineer-to-order (ETO) products. Different from standard products, ETO orders have more production process uncertainties because their design specifications and production process can be changed after the orders have been accepted. Such uncertainties increase production costs, the...

Transportation spend is an increasingly relevant topic of concern for all manufacturing companies. Along with the money spent on transporting goods, service betterment has become an everyday expectation. In a tight market, when contract carriers are unable to fulfill the shipper’s demands, the shipments are tendered to the spot market,...

Although segmentation strategies and their benefits are common topics in the academic literature, two realities contrast in the realm of supply chain management: While a vast number of companies still perceive operations as cost-centers, only a few have adopted profit-driver approaches. The second group embraced segmentation to deploy end-to-end supply...

Service level growth is hindered by declining activity from customers needing access to physical assets stored by the sponsor company. The delivery drone presents a viable option to support the initiative of maintaining service levels while reducing cost. To explore the feasibility of the delivery drone, a comprehensive review of...

More than 99% of the companies in the world are micro, small, or medium size enterprises and account for ~70% of the jobs, on average, in OECD countries. However, due to a lack of productivity, among other factors, only a third of them survive beyond 42 months. This paper explores...

With the latest technological advancement, the use of drones has emerged as an innovative and viable business solution for last-mile distribution. An efficient drone delivery system has to address the classic vehicle routing problem (VRP): "What is the optimal set of routes for a fleet of drones to serve a...

Forecast accuracy is an ongoing challenge for made-to-stock companies. For highly seasonal fast-moving consumer packaged goods (CPGs) companies like King’s Hawaiian, an improved forecast accuracy can have significant financial benefits. Traditional time series forecasting methods are quick to build and simple to run, but with the proliferation of available data...

During the past few years, blockchain technology has shown great potential to disrupt existing supply chain finance solutions, as it could increase the efficiency of invoice processing and provide a more transparent and secure transactions. However, the costs and benefits of implementing blockchain technology in supply chain finance for involved...

With the current imbalance of supply and demand of truck drivers in the U.S., improving driver utilization is critical to secure reliable freight transportation. The largest source of downtime for carriers is the time spent at shippers’ facilities during the unloading and loading process, during which carriers might be detained...

Spare parts management is an essential operation in the supply chain of many companies, owing to its strategic importance in supporting equipment availability and continuity of operations. In many supply chains, the demand of spare parts is inherently more uncertain compared to traditional fast-moving products. This is due to the...

The accelerating global trends of urbanization, interconnectivity, and population mobility are creating the conditions to increase the frequency, severity, and velocity of future outbreaks of high threat pathogens. Expeditionary interventional outbreak responses play a critical role in localizing instead of globalizing the devastation from these events. Outbreak responses are resource...

In recent years, ecommerce has been expanding at an increasing rate. Many retailers are making efforts to improve their channel integration to enhance the order fulfillments for their customers. Therefore, companies often see network optimization as a key element within the ecommerce building. At the same time, more companies are...

Technological breakthroughs and consumer preferences have led to e-commerce growth in the United States. Given the continued rise in e-commerce demand, the final leg of transportation of goods to the end recipient, or the “last-mile,” is of increasing importance to freight services companies. The last- mile is one of the...

With the evolution of technology, more data became available to observe consumer purchase patterns. Traditional forecast methods used to rely on only shipment history. Nonetheless, due to the accessibility of consumer data, a forecast process that integrates downstream flow has shown good results in improving the forecast accuracy in supply...

Traditionally, female business owners have been believed to have relative disadvantages in operating businesses compared to their male counterparts especially in developing countries. This study examines whether gender difference affects the cash management efficiency of micro and small enterprises (MSEs) in Latin America. Cash conversion cycle (CCC), the metric which...

Digital technology advancement has been greatly changing grocery retailing customers’ behavior and expectations. Enabled by digital technologies and pleased by the digital disruptors, customers nowadays are expecting convenient online shopping and fast delivery. To retain their loyalty, retailers are forced to provide better services through digital transformation. World’s leading retailer...

With the increased application of cognitive computing across the spectrum of industries, companies strive to ready their people and machines for future system change. Based on resource constraints, business needs, and the speed of change, many companies may opt for system augmentation rather than the adoption of entirely new systems....

The transportation sector is one of the two principal contributors to greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and its contributions are expected to double by 2050. Growing consumer demand for home deliveries with high service levels at low costs is quickly becoming the standard. As a result, retailers are transforming their supply...

Aerospace and defense companies often struggle with effective inventory management of consumable material inventories. Unlike piece parts, which have a known and defined required quantity, consumable material requirements may vary from one build to the next, even on different builds of the same parent assembly or part number. This variation...

Most organizations spend significant time on improving the processes and systems related to outbound movement of goods, i.e., cargo moving from the production site to customers. This focus often ignores the other aspect of the supply chain, namely inbound cargo movement, which refers to the shipments coming from the suppliers...

E-commerce sales have grown exponentially since the introduction of the smart phone in 2007 and the trend is expected to continue. As retailers enter e-commerce, the pressure to provide more and faster delivery options to the customer is increasing. The resulting complexity and increased delivery speeds are often expensive. Providing...

As transportation costs rise, companies need to become more efficient to remain profitable. One way to increase efficiency in transportation is to increase fleet utilization through the addition of backhaul routes. Most truck routes consist of delivering from a distribution center to stores and then returning to the distribution center...

The rapid growth in e-commerce volumes, coupled with customer expectations of faster, flexible and cheaper parcel deliveries is increasing the pressure on retailers to design the most efficient delivery network. Collection-and-delivery points (CDPs) allow for the aggregation of demand and enable reductions in travel time and costs. CDPs also help...