Relevance with Rigor: Practice-driven Supply Chain Research Projects
Anant Balakrishnan

This presentation has two primary goals: (i) to illustrate the wide variety of interesting decision problems arising in supply chain management that we can address using quantitative models; and (ii) to highlight the benefits of industry-university collaboration to exploit the synergies between supply chain practice and research. The talk will use several examples from a research project sponsored by a leading building products manufacturer as it redesigned its distribution chain to meet the stringent service requirements of big-box retail customers. Decision problems in this context ranged from deciding the optimal set of distributor locations to developing a delivery fee schedule for distributors, assessing the potential savings from reducing order variability, sizing and routing the delivery fleet with variable demand, and characterizing optimal stocking policies when inventories stimulate demand. The presentation will conclude with a discussion of the enablers and mutual benefits of collaborative research projects.