2022 Research Forum – Supply Chain Challenges: Practical Insights from Emerging Academic Research

Bio:

M. Rungtusanatham is Canada Research Chair in Supply Chain Management at the Schulich School of Business, York University; a 2017 Fellow inductee of the Decision Sciences Institute; a 2015 Dennis E. Grawoig Distinguished Service Award also from the Decision Sciences Institute. He is considered as one of the top-50 authors of research in supply chain management, according to Supply Chain Management: An International Journal (in 2019), and a top “individual researchers with greatest overall contribution to the field of Operations Management,” according to International Journal of Production Research (in 2015). His research is supported by grants totaling more than US$295,000 and CAD$1,400,000, with his 50+ publications related to quality management, mass customization, and supply chain disruptions and relationships having appeared in top academic and business journals. His current research focuses on supply chain disruptions – their attributes, triggering events, performance consequences, and mitigation. Rungtusanatham has also co-authored two introductory operations management textbooks and five teaching cases. He has received teaching excellence recognition and awards from four different academic institutions worldwide. He is past President of the Decision Sciences Institute and previously served as its Interim Executive Director.

Presentation: "Supply chain AI/Analytics in the new normal."

In this talk, we present supply chain applications which leverage AI/analytics-based approaches in dealing with uncertainty and disruptions. We discuss how such approaches can help the decision maker in dealing with unpredictable disruptive events through risk mitigation plans and recovery actions.

Presenter Bio:

Yossiri Adulyasak is the holder of the Canada Research Chair in Supply Chain Analytics and an associate professor at HEC Montréal. His research has been published in top-tier journals and conferences in Operations Research (OR), Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Yossiri currently serves as an associate editor of INFORMS Journal on Computing. He is a co-inventor of five US patent applications in the areas of prescriptive analytics and supply chain analytics. Yossiri is also a scientific advisor on multiple industrial projects in collaboration with large Canadian and international companies.

Presentation: "Unlocking the potential of digital transformation with digital due diligence and uncertainty modeling."

Although digital transformation is alluring for senior executives who seek lofty growth rates and operating profits, companies’ attempts to transform their businesses often end with unsatisfactory results. There is no magic formula for success. Companies that exercise digital due diligence and uncertainty modeling would most likely achieve their digital transformation goals.

Presenter Bio:

Isik Bicer is an Assistant Professor of Operations Management and Information Systems at the Schulich School of Business, York University. His current research focuses on analyzing the impact of operational factors on financial parameters (e.g., stock price, capital structure, and return on assets) and designing operational strategies to ensure high customer-fulfillment rates in economically feasible ways. He uses methods from corporate finance, quantitative finance, and optimization theory to address these challenges. His research has appeared in the Financial Times listed journals such as Production and Operations Management and the Journal of Operations Management. He is also a member of Editorial Review Board of the Journal of Operations Management.

Presentation: "Combating supply disruptions through product modularity and reverse logistics."

After the recent pandemic, many manufacturers began to opine that reverse logistics can be used to combat supply disruptions. However, doing so requires an appropriately modular product design that is conducive for refurbishing and remanufacturing. Is it true that a higher product modularity is better? How should the firm price its refurbished products in confluence with choosing its product’s design?

Presenter Bio:

Prashant Chintapalli is an Assistant Professor in the Management Science department at the Ivey Business School and in the Production & Operations Management department at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIMB).

His research is primarily on social responsibility issues in supply chains, and in operations management in general, with an objective to design policies and make decisions that can result in Pareto improvement of the supply chain partners. He develops stylized models to analyze the strategic interactions of various players in a supply chain and infer managerial insights.

Presentation: "Sustainability Transitions and Political Tensions in Global Supply Chains"

Using a single case study from the agricultural sector, we explain the processes and archetypes of sustainability transitions resulting from key stakeholders’ efforts to augment their agency in response to political tensions.

Presenter Bio:

Dr. Sajad Fayezi is an Associate Professor of Operations, Project & Supply Chain Management and the Director of International, Research & Engagement at Memorial University in Canada. He is also affiliated with the University of Adelaide and has held academic appointments at Monash University, La Trobe University, and Swinburne University of Technology. Dr. Fayezi obtained his PhD in Supply Chain Management from Deakin University in Australia. His research engages with debates around creating responsible, sustainable, and resilient supply chains through, for example, mitigating modern slavery risks, promoting sustainability transitions, and developing agile and flexible operations.

Presentation: "Reinforcing Schooling Access for Refugees Children"

There are more than 27 million children in the world, who are distanced from education due to conflicts. In this talk, I will talk about strategies to improve schooling rates among refugee children without burdening the existing infrastructure of the host country. I will use the example of Syrian refugee children hosted in Turkey, the world's largest refugee hosting country.

Presenter Bio:

Feyza G. Sahinyazan is an Assistant Professor of Technology and Operations Management and Business and Society at the Beedie School of Business, Simon Fraser University. Her main research focus is humanitarian aid supply chains, with a particular interest in long-term food and energy access problems. She is also interested in socially-responsible operations management practices and is currently a member of SFU’s Sustainability Advisory Council. Throughout her research projects, she has worked on data-driven operations management problems in collaboration with public sector actors and NGOs such as the UN's World Food Programme, Montreal Children's Hospital, and Turkish Red Crescent. She has worked at the Institute for Data Valorization (IVADO), the data science hub of HEC Montreal as a post-doctoral researcher, after receiving her Ph.D. in Operations Management from Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University.

Presentation: "When Is Standardization Most Beneficial for Reducing Medical Errors? The Moderating Role of Operational Failures."

We use patient-level data across 56 hospitals with 21,965 patients to test the relationship between hospital-level standardization and medical error, and found standardization is most beneficial when there is a high level of operational failures.

Presenter Bio:

Sarah Zheng is an Assistant Professor at Gustavson School of Business at the University of Victoria. Her research vision is to combine her knowledge of the operations management literature and her data analytics training to design systems and processes to improve organizational performance. She is particularly interested in examining how health care organizations can achieve higher performance by improving their internal operations at the process level, and engaging patients in these efforts through cost-sharing at the system level. To study that, she employs econometric, machine learning and statistical techniques to analyze large datasets from insurance claims, clinical databases, hospital operations and performance data and surveys of the health care workforce. Her research has been published in top journal outlets such as Journal of Operations Management, Production and Operations Management and Medical Care, and featured in media outlets such as U.S. News & World Report and Wolters Kluwer.