Zoning in Emerging Logistics Systems: New Theory and Practice

 

Zoning shapes how complicated logistics and societal systems work in practice. In particular, the growth of e-commerce and on-demand delivery services poses new challenges for operationalizing zoning to achieve efficiency goals. In this talk, I will discuss new zoning methods and their applications to manage emerging logistics systems in retail and last-mile delivery. Specifically, I will introduce a provably effective zoning policy for handling time-sensitive delivery requests under uncertainty and describe a field implementation of a flexible zoning policy for a large logistics company. I will also present a new approach to using zoning to manage a dual-delivery system comprising both scheduled and on-demand delivery jobs, shedding light on the value of co-modality for future transportation and logistics systems. 

 

Sheng Liu is an Assistant Professor of Operations Management and Statistics at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. He earned a PhD in Operations Research from UC Berkeley in 2019. Sheng's research focuses on solving operations problems in supply chains, transportation, and logistics systems through optimization and data analytics. His industry experience includes consulting or working for organizations such as JD.com, Sport Chek, Ninja Van, Hungerhub, Amazon, and Lyft.  He also strives to improve decision outcomes for vulnerable populations, motivated by collaboration with nonprofit organizations. His work has been recognized with several awards and paper competitions, including the INFORMS Public Sector Operations Research Best Paper Award, the INFORMS TSL Outstanding Paper Award (Freight Transportation and Logistics), and the M&SOM Data-Driven Research Competition. He currently serves as an associate editor of Transportation Science, a senior editor of Production and Operations Management, and an editorial review board member of Service Science.