As we tap into the new year, alumnus Chris Gaffney (BSIE ’85, MSIE ’86) steps into his role as the Managing Director of the Supply Chain and Logistics Institute (SCL) and the Academic Program Director for Georgia Tech Professional Education (GTPE). With expertise in the field, his return to Georgia Tech welcomes fresh methods and inspiration to enhance the program's supply chain operations. Having earned both his degrees from the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE), Gaffney's journey intertwines deeply with the institution’s growth and impact.

Gaffney’s Return

"For the most part, I've only lived in two places in my life…growing up in DC and then living in Atlanta, I was very fortunate to choose Georgia Tech for both my bachelor's and master’s in industrial engineering." Throughout the years, Gaffney was involved in the community serving on the ISyE Advisory Board, Supply Chain and Logistics Industry Advisory Board, and the Mentees Program at Georgia Tech. Influenced by the ISyE community, Gaffney aims to reciprocate the school’s impact by leveraging his experiences from the Coca-Cola Company to enhance the program. In his new role, Chris wants to continue driving cross-collaboration with SCL partnerships. “Georgia Tech is on the leading edge of the advancements in supply chain and logistics, so I'm hopeful that part of what we could do more of in SCL is help companies access more of that, faster.” Additionally, Gaffney believes there’s an increasing urgency to advancing and “bringing people the type of learning in a way that they can grow their own professional capabilities [and become more multidisciplinary].”

Leadership in Logistics

Gaffney's professional journey began at Frito-Lay, where he navigated operational intricacies as a logistics analyst, later advancing to operations manager. Subsequently, he honed his expertise in international logistics and strategic supply chain management at AJC International and the Coca-Cola Company. Gaffney's tenure at Coca-Cola, spanning over two decades as the Director of National Distribution, and then VP of Transportation for US Coke, epitomizes his commitment to collaboration and innovation. "Coca-Cola taught me the importance of understanding how collaboration works within large enterprises and across companies." Internally, he also served in positions as President of Coca-Cola Supply, and as the President of the National Product Supplied Group, for the US Bottlers. For Gaffney, the journey wasn't just about personal success but about paving pathways for others, bridging the gap in the field between inspiration and accessibility. 

Accessibility Through Collaboration

“-- A big part for me is this idea of, how do you bring the promise of the digital age of supply chain and make it accessible to more and more companies and people?” With the benefit of staying local, Gaffney supported driving academic, and corporate impact through collaboration – specifically towards initiatives aimed at increasing student co-ops, and full-time employment opportunities between Georgia Tech and the Coca-Cola Company. With mentorship serving as a cornerstone in Gaffney’s professional landscape, he believes in advocating for the transformative power of supportive relationships. “[My mentor] would make sure I was on track…it was a much smaller situation then, but it made a huge difference for me, and I never forgot about that -- I've had some really critical mentors early in my career, so I'm a big believer in mentoring and coaching.”

Yellow Jacket Trajectory

Gaffney’s ties to Georgia Tech, spanning decades of investment, characterize a lifelong commitment to growth and service. The motivation and influence instilled during his time at Tech transferred to his life in more ways than one. Chris met his wife at Georgia Tech and has been married for over 30 years; with four adult children, including one being a GT graduate in the field of Supply Chain. Even in hardship, Gaffney’s family is passionate about doing all they can, including relentlessly supporting one of their own as a childhood cancer survivor. They’re also heavily involved philanthropically, specifically in raising money for research on childhood cancer, “we believe that we have a responsibility to do what we can.” As Gaffney shared his final thoughts, he leaves us with a hopeful view, channeled in the moments where he started the beginnings of his career – back on Georgia Tech campus.

Ignacio Erazo recently defended his thesis titled "Efficient Two-Sample Bernoulli Confidence Intervals and Submodular Dispatching", earning his PhD in Operations Research with a minor in Machine Learning under the supervision of Professors David Goldsman and Alejandro Toriello. Erazo's research interests involve the development of efficient optimization algorithms and heuristics for intelligent decision-making as well as large-scale simulation-optimization procedures. Collaborating with Professor Goldsman, he worked on the efficient computation of Confidence Intervals (CIs) for the difference of probabilities between two populations, with applications in health care, last-mile distribution, and production scheduling. This work is useful for many practical problems such as testing new drugs, evaluating inventory policies, estimating contamination rates, or evaluating the difference in rate of adverse events between generic and brand-name drugs. What is notable about his approach is that it uses fewer observations and generates lower costs. With Professor Toriello, Ignacio focused on problems where orders or items arrive at different times and must be processed or delivered in batches (e.g., e-commerce, machine scheduling). By using mathematical models and proposing new algorithms, the team studied the fundamental trade-offs between waiting for orders and batching them, such as obtaining economies of scale, versus the idleness of resources generated by that strategy. This problem has multiple applications in same-day delivery, machine scheduling, and production environments. This work has been presented at scholarly seminars, at multiple INFORMS Annual Meetings, and at the Transportation Science and Logistics (TSL) Conference. Notably, Ignacio's work was recognized with the Best Applied Student Paper Award at Winter Simulation Conference in 2022.

Prior to his doctoral studies at Georgia Tech, Ignacio obtained his degree in industrial civil engineering from the University of Concepcion in 2019. From a very young age, he loved doing math to solve problems and enjoyed participating in math competitions. "Without even recognizing it, I would obsess over taking the 'best' or optimal approach for everything I could. When I took my first optimization class it was obvious to me that this subset of extremely applied math (optimization, but in a broader sense Operations Research) was what I wanted to do in the future, and possibly forever. Essentially, at that point I already knew I wanted to deepen my knowledge, which meant the best course of action was to do a PhD in a university with the best professors." Reflecting on his journey, Ignacio shares his admiration for Georgia Tech's leading position in Operations Research, highlighting the wealth of expertise available within the department. "While Georgia Tech is not as known as other schools in the rest of the world (i.e., Stanford, Harvard, MIT), Georgia Tech leads almost every ranking related to OR. The department is extremely large and there is a professor working in almost every topic. Specific to optimization, logistics, and supply chain, we have a very large number of researchers and professors. That is the reason why GT was one of the only four places I applied to. Knowing what I know today, GT would be second to none."

Erazo’s professional experience includes internships as an applied and research scientist at tech giants Amazon and Apple where he contributed to cutting-edge projects in supply chain management and inventory optimization. At Apple, he was part of the team that develops science-based solutions for its supply chain. In particular, he worked on inventory management for Apple Stores and on "real-time" carrier selection for Apple's supply chain. His projects involved building new methodologies to solve those problems and coding prototypes that could serve as a starting point for deployment and production.

Recently, Erazo joined Amazon Fulfillment Technologies & Robotics as a Research Scientist II. Amazon operates an extensive and intricate supply chain that constantly advances by integrating robotic tools to boost warehouse efficiency. Within this dynamic framework, the algorithmic tools that enable its warehouses to work at their best need to be continuously modified, improved, and enhanced with new capabilities and use cases. Ignacio will meet the challenge by helping create, pilot, and seamlessly deploy new performance and safety-driven algorithms for Amazon's robotic-assisted picking warehouses across its entire network.

Ignacio's dedication to problem-solving and his passion for optimization exemplify the spirit of inquiry and innovation that defines our academic community. We congratulate him on this achievement and look forward to witnessing his continued contributions to the field.

Dipayan Banerjee and Sushil Varma, Ph.D. students in Operations Research at the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE), were recently selected as finalists for the INFORMS Transportation Science and Logistics (TSL) student paper competition. The winner will receive the TSL Best Student Paper Award, given to an outstanding paper primarily authored by a student(s) and whose topic is of interest to the broad TSL community.

Out of a total of 40 submissions, four were designated as finalists. The winner will be chosen at the October 15-18, 2023 INFORMS Annual Meeting taking place in Phoenix Arizona, during which the finalists will showcase their work in a dedicated session. All finalists receive a commemorative plaque, and the winning entrant(s) receives a $500 honorarium. In addition, the winning paper, if not published or under review elsewhere, will be invited for a fast-track review at Transportation Science.

Dipayan Banerjee
Fleet Sizing and Service Region Partitioning for Same-Day Delivery Systems

Many existing Same-Day Delivery (SDD) studies focus primarily on operational dispatch problems and do not consider system design questions. Furthermore, prior work on SDD system design does not consider the fleet sizing decision when a service region may be partitioned into zones dedicated to individual vehicles (such designs have been shown to improve system efficiency in related vehicle routing settings). Banerjee's research utilizes a novel approach to addressing two key tactical design challenges when planning an SDD system: figuring out how many delivery vehicles you need and dividing the delivery area into manageable zones.

Using continuous approximations to capture average-case operational behavior, the problem of independently maximizing the area of a single-vehicle delivery zone is considered first. The approach then characterizes area-maximizing dispatching policies and leverages the results to develop a procedure for calculating optimal areas as a function of a zone's distance from the depot, given a maximum number of daily dispatches per vehicle. Using minimal computation, the approach specifies fleet sizes and builds vehicle delivery zones that meet operational requirements, verified by simulation results.

Sushil Varma
Electric Vehicle Fleet and Charging Infrastructure Planning

Varma's research focuses on finding the best way to dispatch electric vehicles to pick up customers while making sure they charge periodically. As customer requests arrive, system operators must determine the minimum number of vehicles and chargers for a given service level, along with a matching and charging policy that maximizes that service level. Varma's approach provides a sharp characterization of the fleet size and the charging infrastructure requirements as demand grows. The research highlights the fundamental differences between planning for an electric vehicle system and a gas-powered system. To understand the difference, note that serving a customer comprises two steps -  pickup and trip, each contributing to the fleet size requirement of the system. As EVs require charging time, they need more vehicles to compensate for the trip part of the service. In turn, the optimal dispatching policy can reduce the EV requirement induced by the pick up part of the service by lowering the pickup times, owing to the extra EVs due to the trip phase. The reduction in the EV requirement depends on the number of charging stations and the size of the EV battery packs. 

The research proposes the "Power-of-d" dispatching policy, which achieves this performance by selecting the d closest vehicles to a trip request and choosing the one with the highest battery level. Varma also conducted detailed simulations that verified the scaling results. The paper discusses how the results extend to accommodate demand that increases/decreases repetitively or cyclically over time.

About Dipayan

Dipayan Banerjee is a fifth-year ISyE Ph.D. candidate advised by Professors Alan Erera and Alejandro Toriello. He is broadly interested in optimization for logistics and supply chain management with a focus on modern e-commerce systems. His doctoral research, supported by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and the Eisenhower Transportation Research Fellowship, studies demand management and delivery optimization for e-retail fulfillment. Dipayan was jointly awarded ISyE's Atlanta Air Cargo Association Fellowship for Ph.D. Research Excellence in Supply Chain Engineering in 2022. In addition to being named a finalist for the 2023 INFORMS TSL Society Best Student Paper Award, he also was a finalist for the 2019 INFORMS Undergraduate Operations Research Prize.

About Sushil

Sushil Varma, also a 5th-year ISyE Ph.D. student, is advised by Professor Siva Theja Maguluri. His research interests include queueing theory, game theory, and revenue management with applications in electric vehicles, online marketplaces like ride-hailing, load balancing, and stochastic processing/matching networks. Sushil was awarded the Stephen. S. Lavenberg Best Student Paper Award in IFIP Performance 2021 and the Alice and John Jarvis Best Student Paper Award in 2022.

We extend our wishes for success to both of these remarkable students. Their dedication, hard work, and commitment to their research have already set them on a remarkable path. Regardless of the outcome, their recognition is a testament to academic excellence.

Graduate students, under the guidance of SCL affiliated faculty member Jianjun Shi, have recently received well-deserved recognition for their accomplishments. The students' research interests revolve around the use of machine learning and data analytics in relation to advanced manufacturing.

Michael Biehler (advisor: Professor Jianjun Shi)

• Mary G. and Joseph Natrella Scholarship, American Statistical Association (ASA) (2023)
• Best Student Paper Award (Winner) Quality Control and Reliability Engineering (QCRE) Division, IISE (2023)
  • For the paper: M. Biehler, D. Lin , J. Shi (2023): “DETONATE: Nonlinear Dynamic Evolution Modeling of Time-dependent 3-dimensional Point Cloud Profiles” IISE Transactions
• Best Student Paper Award (Finalist) Data Analytics and Information Systems (DAIS) Division, IISE (2023)
  • For the paper: M. Biehler, A. Kulkarni, J. Li, J. Shi (2023+): “MULTI-MODAL: MULTI-fidelity, multi-modality 3D shape modeler:” submitted to IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering
• Phillip J. and Delores A. Scott Graduate Student Health and Wellness Award, H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Tech (2023)
• IHE-LeaD Fellow, Burroughs Wellcome Fund, Interdisciplinary and Health and Environment Leadership Development (2022-2023)

Alina Gorbunova (advisors: Professor Jianjun Shi and Professor Kamran Paynabar)

• NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (2023)

 Shancong Mou (advisor: Professor Jianjun Shi)

• Best Track Paper Award (Winner), Quality Control and Reliability Engineering (QCRE) Division, IISE (2023) 
  • For the paper: Mou, S., Gu, X., Cao, M., Bai, H., Huang, P., Shan, J., Shi, J.*, 2023 “RGI: Robust GAN-Inversion for Generic Pixel-wise Anomaly Detection and Mask-free Image Inpainting”, The International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR 2023).
• John S.W. Fargher Jr. Scholarship, IISE (2023)
• Angela P. and Reed J. Baker Research Excellence Award, School of ISyE, Georgia Institute of Technology (2023)

 Zihan Zhang (advisors: Professor Jianjun Shi and Professor Kamran Paynabar)

• Aerospace and Test Measurement Division Scholarship, ISA (2023)
• ISA Scholarship, ISA (2023)
• Gilbreth Memorial Scholarship, IISE (2023)
• NCORE Student Scholar, National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education (2023)

Valerie Thomas, Anderson-Interface Chair of Natural Systems and Professor in the H. Milton School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, was recently asked to speak as part of Sustainability Research + Innovation (SRI) Congress 2023. The event was hosted online and at the Panama Convention Center by the National Secretariat of Science, Technology, and Innovation of the Republic of Panama (SENACYT) and the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI).

Sustainability Research + Innovation Congress 2023 is the world's largest gathering for the global sustainability community, and for the first time, the event took place in the Latin American and Caribbean Region. SRI unites more than 2000 global sustainability research leaders, government and civil society experts, funders and innovators to inspire action and promote a sustainability transformation. The global and annual event elevates diverse knowledge on sustainability, provides an inspiring platform to share innovative ideas, and creates an inclusive space for collaboration and action. SRI is a joint initiative of Future Earth and the Belmont Forum.

As part of the Fri Jun 30 panel session "Reducing Emissions from Logistics", Thomas discussed "Life-cycle Approaches to Assessing Emissions from Logistics." To help provide the academic perspective, she was joined by Marilyn Brown, Regents' and Brook Byers Professor of Sustainable Systems in the School of Public Policy,  who spoke on "Three trends challenging U.S. and global emissions reductions from logistics." The private sector perspective was provided by Alex Rodriguez, Regional Head of Energy Transition Execution - LAM with A.P. Moller - Maersk. Rodriquez provided a broad and interesting discussion of air-water-land logistics, its impact on the environment, and possible future solutions. The session was organized by Jorge Barnett Lawton, Managing Director of the Georgia Tech Panama Logistics Innovation & Research Center, who also moderated the session from Panama City.

To learn more about the annual event and view available recordings, please visit https://sricongress.org/.

Becky Francosky is the Director of Air Service Development at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL). She has more than 15 years of experience in strategic planning, market research, analytics and project management that has been refined in roles in both the private and public sector. Ms. Francosky has broad experience in conducting primary and secondary research, analyzing market and competitive intelligence, gap analysis, forecasting and leveraging analytical frameworks to develop forward-looking and extrapolative insights.
 
Becky rejoined Hartsfield-Jackson in 2022 after working extensively with ATL on several key analytical studies through her company Advanced Aviation Analytics. While in her consulting role, she worked on a variety of projects including the Economic Impact Study, management dashboards and frameworks for gate utilization and forecasting. She has recruited several international passenger and cargo airlines and frequently engages with current and prospective airlines to help build stakeholder engagement.

Additionally, Becky plans and coordinates economic and business development activities with a variety of state and local organizations. From 2008 to 2012, Becky directed the market research program to understand customer’s preferences and needs, which led to expanded product and service offerings and increased non-aeronautical revenue by 40 percent.

We are very excited to have Becky join our board, lend us her expertise, and continue ATL's participation and support of SCL programs.

Devyon wasn't having success landing interviews or getting call backs for job applications. A mentor at the National Urban League encouraged him to apply to Juma, an employment and job training program which helps youth overcome the hardships of poverty and aspire to career success. As part of its social enterprise operations in Atlanta, Juma offers year-round employment to over 140 Atlanta youth at SunTrust Park, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and State Farm Arena—home of the Braves, Falcons, Hawks, and Dream—as well as the Georgia World Congress Convention Center.

Devyon applied and successfully enrolled in Juma, and found a path to earn money, build his resume, and pave his future. As part of the program, Devyon took Georgia Tech LEAP courses to learn more about supply and logistics and the career paths the field has to offer. His dedication to the job, his willingness to go above what was expected of him and his attention to detail were characteristics that made him stand out to Juma’s Enterprise Managers. After successfully completing Juma’s training program, Devyon secured a job at UPS, a Juma Atlanta job placement partner. Today, Devyon has stable employment and, after successfully passing UPS’ Supervisor Exam, became a Shift Manager.

Learn about Devyon Johnson's story in the Juma website.

Zaria participated in Juma, an employment and job training program which helps youth overcome the hardships of poverty and aspire to career success. As part of its social enterprise operations in Atlanta, Juma offers year-round employment to over 140 Atlanta youth at SunTrust Park, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and State Farm Arena—home of the Braves, Falcons, Hawks, and Dream—as well as the Georgia World Congress Convention Center.

Zuma promotes participants to earn while they learn, so while going to school during the week to pursue her GED, Zaria took GT LEAP courses at night and worked in the Juma Atlanta concessions operations group on the weekend. Through perseverance and her will to succeed, she later secured fulltime employment within the JUMA organization.

At the Future of Work 2017 summit sponsored by The Atlantic, Zaria was asked about her experience. She commented, “sometimes, people just need a second chance and an opportunity to take advantage of it.” The experience has opened her eyes to the possibilities and Ms. Walker has aspirations to be a crime scene investigator. Zaria plan to pursue further education and make that dream a reality some day.

On a journey for knowledge and self-development, Marine Corporal Phillip Davis completed the Supply Chain Management Principles, Customer Service Operations, Warehousing Operations, and Transportation Operations courses as part of the LEAP program.

“The courses have given me more tools towards helping build my critical thinking skills and the necessary skills and training to help me apply information about good supply chain management. It also gives me certainty in performing my duties as a Marines administrator to ensure required supplies and materials are delivered in a timely and right way.”

Corporal Davis commented that one day he would like to own his own business. By taking the LEAP courses, he has gotten closer to that goal through a better understanding of the importance of supply chain.  “It helps me think about how to have things ready when and before people need them, to meet and exceed internal and external customers' demands. Being an administrator, there are things that I need to stay informed about, and acquiring awards, certificates help me do that. Responsibility wise, I constantly keep track of what we use, have and when we are down to half supplies. I put in orders for new supplies and replacement. The courses that I have taken definitely help me perform my duties at a high level above expectation. Overall, this program has helped me add on to my organization and accounting skills as in the military accountability is a big thing.”

Todd Ullom has over 30 years' experience as an entrepreneur, developer, general contractor, technologist, and market strategist holding senior executive positions with both private and public companies. He is currently vice president for MiTek, a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, leading the development of the company’s distributed construction platform which is initially focused on offsite volumetric assembly of hotels. He joined MiTek as part of the acquisition of Innovation Builder, a technology company founded by Todd with a focus on solving the construction industry's toughest problems. Throughout his career, Todd has managed both growth and turnaround companies, developed new business opportunities, designed industry leading business processes and developed innovative marketing strategies. His experience includes founder and president of a bespoke building company; senior leadership positions in large private and public construction companies including COO, region president, VP of strategy and operations; and VP of strategy and business development for a technology firm.

Todd has developed more than $2.5 billion in real estate with annual P&L responsibility of more than $500 million and developed turnaround programs for over 50 projects during the financial crisis. He has developed industry leading processes for scheduling, purchasing and trade relationships. Todd created the Martha Stewart and Ralph Lauren branded home programs and has developed creative customer centric product designs and selling strategies. He has provided business and technology consulting for more than 200 builders and contractors of all sizes throughout North America. Todd has also served in numerous capacities constructing large scale commercial projects that include major medical research facilities, hospitals, dormitories, hotels and club houses. 

Todd has a B.S. in Building Construction from the Georgia Institute of Technology, is a licensed Florida general contractor and sales associate, certified in advanced design thinking through IDEO and is a certified leadership coach with John Maxwell. He is a former president of the Atlanta Homebuilders Association, was named as one of Seattle’s Top Business Executives Under 40 in 1999, received the Lee Evans Award for Management Excellence in 2012, was named America’s Best Builder in 2013 and currently serves on the Board of Governors for the non-profit Opportunity International.