INFORMS Open Forum

I am a graduate student pursuing MS Business Analytics at the University of California - Davis.

I did my Bachelor in Business Administration (BBA), and 1st Master in Management Science from the leading business school in Pakistan (known as IBA Karachi). I have co-founded 2 startups in the past, and have worked in the industry for 6 years. My last role was with the largest Tobacco Manufacturer in the world, Philip Morris International (PMI). Where I managed downstream national supply chain. Working on an analytical project of Network Design, I help PMI save 16% of total variable cost of Logistics Operations. It was a huge project which I single-handedly completed with the help of analytics. I used center-of-gravity method to design the distribution network. 

I realized that with the help of analytics and machine learning we can optimize supply chain and reduce logistical waste. I aim to learn the following items to optimize supply chain (OR) with the help of Analytics and ML. 

1. Inventory Management: I want to learn and develop models for Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ), changing Safety Stock Analysis, Forecasting Demand using time series analysis, regression, and machine learning for improving operations. 
2. For Network Design: I realized we can use location-allocation models to determine the optimal locations for distribution centers, warehouses, and factories (I used Center-of-gravity previously), and facility location models to minimize transportation and operating costs while maintaining service levels.
3. Transportation/Logistic Optimization: Linear programming to reducing logistical costs and determining optimized routes. 
4. Risk Mitigation: Simulation and stochastic models for reducing the impacts of uncertainties and better decision making during the same.

The list is exhaustive, and can further be improved as we go deep inside the OR topics. It is the top-line to start with. I love talking to people and learning from their experiences. Currently, I am following Alex and watching his videos to learn Analytics and I follow him on LinkedIn. I am dropping his YT channel here, would be helpful for many. 

Through INFORMS, I am looking forward to connecting with likeminded individuals, academicians, and industry experts and veterans! 

Please feel free to connect me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanpuri/

Alex YT Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@AlexTheAnalyst

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Sanjay Puri
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - DAVIS
SAN FRANCISCO, CA
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I am a graduate student pursuing MS Business Analytics at the University of California - Davis.

I did my Bachelor in Business Administration (BBA), and 1st Master in Management Science from the leading business school in Pakistan (known as IBA Karachi). I have co-founded 2 startups in the past, and have worked in the industry for 6 years. My last role was with the largest Tobacco Manufacturer in the world, Philip Morris International (PMI). Where I managed downstream national supply chain. Working on an analytical project of Network Design, I help PMI save 16% of total variable cost of Logistics Operations. It was a huge project which I single-handedly completed with the help of analytics. I used center-of-gravity method to design the distribution network. 

I realized that with the help of analytics and machine learning we can optimize supply chain and reduce logistical waste. I aim to learn the following items to optimize supply chain (OR) with the help of Analytics and ML. 

1. Inventory Management: I want to learn and develop models for Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ), changing Safety Stock Analysis, Forecasting Demand using time series analysis, regression, and machine learning for improving operations. 
2. For Network Design: I realized we can use location-allocation models to determine the optimal locations for distribution centers, warehouses, and factories (I used Center-of-gravity previously), and facility location models to minimize transportation and operating costs while maintaining service levels.
3. Transportation/Logistic Optimization: Linear programming to reducing logistical costs and determining optimized routes. 
4. Risk Mitigation: Simulation and stochastic models for reducing the impacts of uncertainties and better decision making during the same.

The list is exhaustive, and can further be improved as we go deep inside the OR topics. It is the top-line to start with. I love talking to people and learning from their experiences. Currently, I am following Alex and watching his videos to learn Analytics and I follow him on LinkedIn. I am dropping his YT channel here, would be helpful for many. 

Through INFORMS, I am looking forward to connecting with likeminded individuals, academicians, and industry experts and veterans! 

Please feel free to connect me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanpuri/

Alex YT Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@AlexTheAnalyst

------------------------------
Sanjay Puri
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - DAVIS
SAN FRANCISCO, CA
------------------------------

Hello, Sanjay.  First of all, congratulations for thinking about the "big picture" in your career path, and to improve supply chain performance.

The topics you listed are certainly fundamentals of "getting the right stuff to the right place at the right time, while reducing cost/eliminating waste".  I suggest three other areas, which might be harder to get as formal courses, but are definitely important to supply chain success!

1. Change Management.  There are courses in this, but execution is really a soft skill that has to be learned, then experienced.  The best technology, tools, approaches won't effect change nor improve results unless the People and Processes are also in place to use it.
2. Control Systems/dynamic systems/feedback loops.  These are different names for a similar concept.  Supply chains are complex systems, typically with long delays (latency) between changed inputs and resulting changes in outputs (results).  Engineering theory shows that system delays with feedback control can lead to instability.  In terms of Supply Chain, remember the bullwhip effect!  Reducing system delays improves responsiveness and can reduce instability.  Consider how poorly car cruise control would work if it adjusted the throttle every few minutes rather than many times per second.  Also, including a model of the System in the control loop, even if that model is imperfect, can improve performance.  In engineering, this is the essence of PID controllers.  Also, see Smith Predictor (such as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_predictor) which, I suggest, is an enhancement of the PID method.
3. Design for flexibility, uncertainty.  I suggest this is an emerging field.  Do you manage a supply chain to the best possible, most likely, or best across a range of variables?  For sure, reducing latency (see (2) above) will help, but supply chains are real-world systems so no one knows exactly what will happen in the future.  Then, where should you invest, spend money?  What should be the balance between getting a better demand forecast, managing suppliers and supplies, responding to change, improving production processes, or all the other areas that can improve SC performance?

I hope this gives you some things to think about!  Good luck as you pursue supply chain excellence!

Duncan Klett,
Fellow, Kinaxis

I am a graduate student pursuing MS Business Analytics at the University of California - Davis.

I did my Bachelor in Business Administration (BBA), and 1st Master in Management Science from the leading business school in Pakistan (known as IBA Karachi). I have co-founded 2 startups in the past, and have worked in the industry for 6 years. My last role was with the largest Tobacco Manufacturer in the world, Philip Morris International (PMI). Where I managed downstream national supply chain. Working on an analytical project of Network Design, I help PMI save 16% of total variable cost of Logistics Operations. It was a huge project which I single-handedly completed with the help of analytics. I used center-of-gravity method to design the distribution network. 

I realized that with the help of analytics and machine learning we can optimize supply chain and reduce logistical waste. I aim to learn the following items to optimize supply chain (OR) with the help of Analytics and ML. 

1. Inventory Management: I want to learn and develop models for Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ), changing Safety Stock Analysis, Forecasting Demand using time series analysis, regression, and machine learning for improving operations. 
2. For Network Design: I realized we can use location-allocation models to determine the optimal locations for distribution centers, warehouses, and factories (I used Center-of-gravity previously), and facility location models to minimize transportation and operating costs while maintaining service levels.
3. Transportation/Logistic Optimization: Linear programming to reducing logistical costs and determining optimized routes. 
4. Risk Mitigation: Simulation and stochastic models for reducing the impacts of uncertainties and better decision making during the same.

The list is exhaustive, and can further be improved as we go deep inside the OR topics. It is the top-line to start with. I love talking to people and learning from their experiences. Currently, I am following Alex and watching his videos to learn Analytics and I follow him on LinkedIn. I am dropping his YT channel here, would be helpful for many. 

Through INFORMS, I am looking forward to connecting with likeminded individuals, academicians, and industry experts and veterans! 

Please feel free to connect me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanpuri/

Alex YT Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@AlexTheAnalyst

------------------------------
Sanjay Puri
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - DAVIS
SAN FRANCISCO, CA
------------------------------