Optimizing the Configuration of Food Supply Chains

Dr. Haitao Li

September 23, 2022

Presentation Topic

A food supply chain is a complex system with unique characteristics and challenges. The needs for efficient, quality, sustainable, and resilient decision-support in modern food supply chains have motivated various research opportunities for the use of prescriptive analytics, or data-driven optimization.

In this talk, I will introduce the food supply chain configuration problem (FSCCP) to optimize the tactical-level mode selection and inventory positioning decisions for a general multi-echelon food supply chain. Computational studies show that the optimal FSCCP solutions significantly outperform two heuristic solutions that focus solely on cost or quality. Managerial insights are obtained on the impacts of key input parameters on the optimal configuration and performance metrics.

About the Speaker

Dr. Haitao Li is Professor and Chair of the Supply Chain & Analytics Department, and founding Director of Laboratory of Advanced Supply Chain Analytics at the University of Missouri – St Louis (UMSL). Dr. Li has years’ of research experience in optimization modeling and algorithm design, and has been actively working with industry and research institutes in the application domains of supply chain optimization, project scheduling, vehicle routing, and resource allocation, among others.

Dr. Li was a recipient of the Young Investigator Award from the US Army Research Office (ARO) in 2010, the Douglas Durand Award for Research Excellence of UMSL in 2015. With two U.S. Patent applications and a number of invention disclosures, he was named 2015 UMSL Inventor of The Year. He currently serves as Associate Editor of the Journal of the Operational Research Society and Transportation Journal, and Editorial Board member of the International Journal of Project Management.