DERS

Mastering Agricultural Supply Chains

Prof.Dr ENVER YÜCESAN, INSEAD, Fransa

Nowhere is the need for effective supply chain design and management (SCM) more crucial than in agriculture, to ensure efficient service to the consumer in the presence of shrinking resources. Even though food production has significantly grown over the past 50 years due to wider adoption of technology, 870 million people still suffer from hunger; even more are malnourished. With the global population projected to reach 9 billion by 2050, the United Nations estimates that the world will need 30% more fresh water, 50% more energy, and 70% more food.

SCM must then focus on designing high-performance networks from the farm to the fork. Matching supply with demand is particularly challenging in agri-business for various reasons. First and foremost, production lead times are long. In the northern hemisphere, the lead time for corn seed can be as long as 16 months! Second, the demand is not only uncertain, but also highly seasonal. It is correlated across years. To make matters worse, the production lead times are significantly longer than the sales window, the planting season. Third, production yields are also highly uncertain. Fourth, fluctuating commodity prices make matching supply with demand virtually impossible. Mid-season production is not an option in many regions; nor is transshipping seeds from one hemisphere to the other economically viable. Finally, there is huge product proliferation as companies introduce a large number of new varieties every year.

In this presentation, we will discuss the practical challenges –and the resulting research opportunities– in agri-business, including long-term forecasting, supplier contracting, and production-distribution planning and scheduling.

Biography

Professor of Operations Research at the European Institute of Business Administration, INSEAD, in Fontainebleau, France, Enver Yücesan's main teaching and research activities focus on tactical operational problems such as process analysis, manufacturing planning and control, integrated logistics, supply chain management, and performance assessment in manufacturing, telecommunications, and service environments.

He is also a specialist in computer simulation with an emphasis on large-scale industrial applications and performance analysis. Professor Yücesan is an Industrial Engineer with a PhD in Operations Research from Cornell University.

Professor Yücesan has been actively involved in numerous supply chain rationalization efforts in the automotive, white goods, electronics, petrochemical, agri-business, and health care industries as well as in service initiatives.

Professor Yücesan is a member of the Board of Directors of the Winter Simulation Conference and an Area Editor of the IIE Transactions. He is the author of academic articles on stochastic modeling and performance analysis as well as of two books on supply chain management.