Yao Zhao

I am a Professor in Supply Chain Management at Rutgers Business School, and the co-director of Supply Chain Analytics Lab @ Rutgers. I hold a Ph.D. degree in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences in 2002 from Northwestern University.

My research interests lie in supply chain management, analytics and healthcare. I published on leading operations research and management journals such as Operations Research, Manufacturing and Service Operations Management (M&SOM), Production and Operations Management, etc., as well as healthcare journals, such as International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics, and Personalized Medicine. I served as an associate editor for Operations Research and MSOM.

I was invited to speak at seminars of universities and industry research laboratories, such as Columbia DRO, MIT ORC, Chicago Booth, Northwestern IEMS, Stanford MSE, Michigan Ross, Maryland Smith and IBM Watson. My research was reported by media such as The European Business Review, Aviation Week and Space Technology, International Innovation, and Pharmaceutical Executives. My PhD graduates hold tenured (tenure-track) faculty positions in research universities such as the University of Delaware, the College of William and Mary, and NJIT, as well as quantitative research positions in JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs.

I taught core operations, supply chain and analytics courses at Rutgers Business School. I also launched a few popular MOOCs on Coursera towards the Supply Chain Analytics Specialization. Modules of my book "Supply Chain Analytics: Cases, Games and Solutions" were adopted by many supply chain management, operations management and analytics programs around the world.

I consulted with companies and government agencies, such as General Motors, Estee Lauder, Verizon, MTA – NY Transit, Special Olympics, Johnson and Johnson, Fannie Mae, Defense Logistics Agency and US Navy, Korean Air-Cargo, Robert Wood Johnson hospitals, and Water and Power Development Authority of Pakistan.

My MIT System Design Management webinar on 787 Dreamliner (12/2013) attracted a world-wide attendance of 307 people from 29 countries and 50+ companies or organizations. Our work on Special Olympics shuttle system helped the 2014 USA Games (5000 athelets, 1000 coaches and 11 locations in a 40-mile radius in NJ) to achieve 100% customer satisfaction in transportation with a budget of $600,000. Our work on Pakistan energy crisis proves the ineffectiveness of the government’s then policy and suggests an alternative, which was partially adopted with a significant economic and social impact.

Awards

• 2019-2025 Dean’s Research Professorship.
• 2021 Decision Sciences Journal of Innovation Education (DSJIE) Best Teaching Brief awards.
• 2019 INFORMS ENRE Early-Career Best Paper Award.
• Finalist – 2019 DSI Instructional Innovation Award.
• 2020, 2011 Dean’s Meritorious Research Awards.
• 2016 Dean’s Meritorious Teaching Award.
• 2008-2014 National Science Foundation Career Award on Manufacturing Enterprise Systems.
• 1 ^st Prize - 2014 INFORMS Case Writing Competition.
• 2010 M&SOM Meritorious Service Award.
• Honorable Mention - 2001 Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (M&SOM) Student Paper Competition.

Research

Teaching and Service

• Operations Analysis (MBA, MS core)

  2008 - Present
• Supply Chain Management Strategies (MBA major).

  2002 - 2016
• Supply Chain Analytics (MS core, MBA elective)

  2016 - Present
• Global Procurement and Sourcing Strategies (Undergrad major)

  2018 - Present

• Co-director - Supply Chain Analytics Laboratory at Rutgers.

  2015 - Present
• Academic coordinator - Ph.D. programs in supply chain management.

  2010 - Present
• Founding Co-director - Masters of Science in Supply Chain Analytics.

  2015 - 2016
• Founding Co-director - Master of Science in Healthcare Analytics and Intelligence.

  2015 - 2017

• Associate Editor - Operations Research.

  2012 - 2018
• Associate Editor - Manufacturing & Service Operations Management.

  2011 - 2014
• Judge - M&SOM Student Paper Competition.

  2008 - 2016

Supply Chain Analytics: Cases, Games and Solutions

Supply Chain Analytics, that integrates supply chain management with data analytics, is an emerging and exciting area in high demand. This book meets this demand in a unique approach by combining data-driven problem discovery with model-driven problem solving, through powerful database and analysis tools for students to interpret data and generate insights without coding, award winning case studies to earn hands-on experience, and online competitive games to learn by doing.

The book is in multi-media and electronic format ready-to-use for instructors to minimize their preparation time. Instructors can contact me at my email for teaching materials (slides, database, homework assignments and solutions).

Hunger Chain Simulation

A Competitive Simulation for Teaching Supply Chain Management

Shortage gaming, supply chain competition, and supply rationing are important and timely topics in the operations management and supply chain management curricula. They are hard to teach by lecturing but easy to play out. We introduce an online instructional game, the Hunger Chain, a multi-period competitive simulation, to engage the students in the experiential learning of these topics, making learning effective and fun. Using a controlled experiental study, we provide statistical significant evidence to show that the game stimulates and improves students’ learning of panic orders and hoarding (shortage gaming), how one team’s performance depends on others’ actions (supply chain competition), and how limited supplies may be rationed in supply chains to achieve efficiency and/or fairness (supply rationing).

The above game trajectory indicates panic orders (left graph: total order skyrocketed while demand remained stable) and hoarding (right graph: some retailers starved but others had excessive supplies), as we may observe in the real-world.

As of Jan. 9th, 2022, 370+ games were played by 1100+ student teams under the supervision of 50+ instructors in 20+ universities around the world. A text analysis of the 75 feedback from students in response to the question of “What is your most compelling learning from the Hunger Chain simulation?” at two US universities in 2018 and 2020 show the following results:

The top words in the feedback include ‘game’, ‘hunger’, as well as ‘fun’ and ‘like.’ The sentiment analysis of the feedback shows approximately 90% were positive sentiment, and 8% were negative sentiment mainly due to confusions of the game rules.

• 2023 August Workshop Presentation.
• DSJIE Paper.
• Teaching Slides.

• Hunger Chain Simulation - Introduction.
• Hunger Chain Simulation - How to Play.
• Hunger Chain Simulation - Gaming and Discussion.

FloraPark Simulation

A Supply Chain Contracts and Collaboration Simulation

How to collaborate to win the competition against other supply chains while defending yourself against your “worst” enemy: your trading partner?

Intensity competition among supply chains often forces trading partners to collaborate despite their conflict of interests. Supply chain contracts and collaboration are well studied in the academic literature to align the interests but much less conveyed to students and industry professionals for a practical impact. Although the Beer Game captures the bullwhip effect and value of information sharing, it ignores the conflict of interests, such as, price and quantity bargaining, between trading partners. A new game, the FloraPark simulation (“the flower game”), is designed, based on real-life events of the international fresh flower supply chains, for students to learn supply chain contracts and collaboration in multiple supply chains competing in the same market. Students experiment on the push, pull and the advanced purchasing discount contracts to negotiate wholesale prices and quantities to achieve the conflicting objectives between (1) collaboration to beat up other supply chains and (2) bargaining to protect their own interests against their trading partners.

As of Jan. 9th, 2022, 78 games were played by 276 student teams under the supervision of 20+ instructors in half a dozen universities around the world. Sample student feedback in response to the question of "What is your most compelling learning from the FloraPark simulation?" and "What do you like best about this course" is as follows:

• "The best part about the FloraPark simulation was the conflicting motivations between the firms in the supply chain. ...There must be a careful balance between self-interested actions to capture the maximum amount of value from the supply chain and collaboration to compete against the other supply chains."
• "We were critical to each other’s success and our strategy would not work if both of us didn’t participate. Our combined strategy was greater than any individual strategies we could have."
• "The supply chain strategy games in second half of the course [FloraPark] were exceptional learning experience."

• 2023 August Workshop Presentation.
• ITE paper - FloraPark (the Flower Game).
• FloraPark Simulation - The Supply Chain Flower Game.

• FloraPark Simulation - Teaching Plan and Assignment
• FloraPark Simulation - Instructor Manual
• Simulation Lecture 1 - An Introduction
• Simulation Lecture 2 - Strategic Thinking
• Simulation Lecture 3 - Teamwork
• Simulation Lecture 4 - Collaborative Supply Chain Strategies
• Simulation Lecture 5 - Competitive Supply Chain Strategies
• Simulation Lecture 6 - Negotiation
• Simulation Lecture 7 - Game Trajectory and Assignment
• Simulation Lecture 8 - Reflection and Reality Show

Teaching (Supply Chain) Analytics Without Coding

Most students like to learn analytics, but few likes coding. This workshop demos and shares teaching plans and modules (slides, homework, data) on how to teach analytics to general audience (undergrad, MBA, executive, …) without coding. Instructors can use the modules, built on awarding winning cases, games and analysis tools, to teach students problem discovery and solving skills in inventory, sales and operations planning, and supply chain contracts and collaboration.

This workshop is free and intended for instructors interested in developing new supply chain analytics courses or improving an existing supply chain course with data analytics.

The 2022 webinar series cover the following topics:

• Inventory analytics - from problem solving to problem discovery: (1) For which industries is inventory important and relevant? (2) How does inventory drive firms’ performance in my industry? (3) How do I know if I have an inventory problem?
  • Presentation.
  • Recorded Video.
• Pandemic influenza case + Hunger chain simulation: (1) How to forecast rare but disastrous events? (2) How to align commerce with public health? (3) Simulating panic orders and hoarding under supply shortages.
  • Presentation.
  • Recorded Video.
• FloraPark simulation to learn supply chain collaboration via price and quantity contracts, such as push, pull, and advanced purchasing discount contracts.
  • Presentation.
  • Recorded Video.

INFORMS Tutorial On Teaching Supply Chain Analytics

Mainstream teaching of supply chain analytics focuses on model-driven predictive and prescriptive analytics to solve well-defined problems. In practice, however, nothing is well defined. Data-driven descriptive and diagnostic analytics to define and discover problems is almost entirely missing from the curriculum. The reason, as some believe, is that the latter is easier and of a lower value. But Steve Jobs once said: “If you can define the problem correctly, you almost have the solution.” Problem discovery by descriptive and diagnostic analytics is not only highly valuable but can also be difficult. One key challenge is data interpretation, that is, transforming data into insights – the INFORMS definition of Analytics.

In this tutORial, I summarize recent development and education modules that use descriptive and diagnostic analytics to define and discover problems based on data in various supply chain domains from source, make, move, sell to integration. I showcase the value and methodology by inventory analytics, sourcing analytics and competitive intelligence.

• Article.
• Recorded Video.

Teaching Supply Chain Analytics: From Problem Solving to Problem Discovery

Most supply chain analytics curriculums focus on model-driven predictive and prescriptive analytics to solve well-defined problems. However, practitioners and business audience are thirsty for problem definition and discovery skills as nothing in real-life is well defined. Indeed, as Steve Jobs once said, “If you define the problem correctly, you almost have the solution.”

In these webinars, I will share experiences and modules to teach data-driven descriptive and diagnostic analytics to define and discover problems in supply chains, including, inventory analytics, sourcing analytics and competitive intelligence. The focus is on transforming data into insights - data interpretation. You will find that problem discovery is not only highly valuable, but also sophisticated and revealing.

These webinars are intended for instructors interested in developing new supply chain analytics courses or improving an existing supply chain course with data analytics.

• Inventory analytics: (1) For which countries, industries and segment(s) of supply chains is inventory relevant and important? (2) How may inventory affect firms’ financial performance in my industry? (3) How do I know if I have an inventory problem?
  • Presentation.
  • Recorded Video.
• Sourcing analytics: (1) Market Intelligence to identify and select new suppliers (2) Supplier Analysis to assess individual suppliers’ technical capability, pricing, profitability and financial robustness.
  • Presentation.
  • Recorded Video.
• Competitive intelligence: (1) What are the most valuable segment(s) in my supply chain? (2) What are my strengths and weaknesses relative to my competitors? (3) What factor(s) may drive a company’s financial performance in my industry?
  • Presentation.
  • Recorded Video.