Grant: Canada Research Chairs

A recent study showed that approximately 98% of the firms do not believe that they have necessary tools and resources to help them face a future supply chain disruption. On the one hand, traditional supply chain planning models which rely on simplistic assumptions with respect to uncertainties, in particular the use of deterministic models with point forecasts or estimations of uncertain inputs such as demands and lead times, are far from being effective in such a circumstance. On the other hand, common methods used to evaluate and manage supply chain risks are also proven to be inadequate due to the fact that they mostly rely on historical data or good estimations of likelihood of possible scenarios, which are either unavailable or become impertinent to the disruptive situation at hand. In addition, under the recent Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, Canadian firms are under great pressure to transform their entire supply chains to support circular economy and sustainability. Nevertheless, low-emissions and sustainable technologies such as electric vehicles and renewable products require suitable supply chain designs and processes, which often differ from the traditional ones, to be economically viable. Oftentimes, specialized approaches are also needed when incorporating sustainability objectives and targets, such as those related to emission controls and waste management, to satisfy stringent environmental regulations in a holistic fashion. Thus, it is inevitable to put forward key research initiatives to enhance the future supply chains to become resilient, responsive and sustainable. The chair aims to put forward strong research initiatives to enhance resilience, responsiveness and sustainability in supply chains through analytics tools which allow Canadian firms to improve their performance and competitiveness in highly challenging and uncertain environments. Our expected accomplishments are to advance and deliver systematic approaches based on operations research and machine learning techniques to improve the three aforementioned aspects of supply chains in various industries, to train and develop high quality researchers in the areas of analytics and decision sciences, and to enhance visibility and impact of Canadian research in the fields pertinent to the chair’s program.