Research themes
The Centre focuses on five thematic research and impact pillars.
Transport and logistics
- Modelling and optimisation of problems in the design, planning and operation of transportation networks for the distribution of freight
- Container shipping, empty container/vehicle positioning and ship loading
- Intermodal terminal and seaport terminal management
- Vehicle routing problems in road transportation
- Multi-commodity network design, service network design and facility location
- Last-mile solutions
- Capacity analyses of rail networks and railway timetabling.
Agri-food supply chains
- Food waste reduction
- Food security and sustainability
- Integrating local and global food production systems
- Circular economies and food supply chains
- Inventory and pricing strategies for perishable food supply chains.
Sustainable supply chain management
- Green supply chain management
- Carbon foot-printing of logistics systems
- Environmental policies and operations and supply chain performance
- Sustainable procurement
- Modern slavery and supply chain ethics.
Agile operations
- Organisational agility
- Agile and resilient operations
- Management practices and the performance and productivity of small firms
- Sustainable growth of SMEs.
Supply chain technologies, analytics and risk
- Digital strategies and ICT adoption in operations and supply chain management
- Uncertainty and risk mitigation
- Mathematical programming, stochastic dynamic programming and meta-heuristic optimisation of supply chains
- Development of models and algorithms to support supply chain network design
- Artificial intelligence and blockchain applications
- Machine learning and big data analytics in operations and supply chain management.