Title: Product Contamination in a Multi Stage Food Supply Chain
Speaker: Dr. Vijaya Chebolu-Subramanian
Time and date: 930am, 21/8/15, Friday
Venue: Room 217, ME Building
Abstract: Food product contamination has potentially devastating effects on companies and supply chains. However, the impact of contamination has still not been thoroughly studied from a supply chain planning perspective. We model a contamination event in a generic food supply chain consisting of suppliers, processing centers, and retailers. Contamination is detected through either company or government agency sampling tests or through reports of a food borne illness. In this research, we analyze the impact of origin and choice of sampling strategies, and product and supply chain attributes on a contamination event. We also simulate a real-world contamination cases to gain further insights.
Speaker's brief Bio: Dr. Vijaya C. Subramanian is currently the Product Development and Supply Chain Lead at a Stanford University incubated company Aggrigator, which connects sellers and buyers of local foods. She holds a PhD in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Texas A&M University and a M.S. from the University of Maryland, College Park. Prior to this, she was faculty at the Institute for Financial Management and Research, Chennai. She has also been a researcher at the HEC Business School, Paris and has worked in the department of Procurement and Logistics at the United Nations, New York. Her research interests are in the areas of Quantitative Modeling and Supply Chain Management with a focus on food, agriculture and healthcare.