From Pork Production to AI, Assistant Professor Is Eager to Continue Supply Chain Research, Impressed by Opportunities for Women to Lead

 Having recently earned a Ph.D. in supply chain operations and technology from the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis, Ye Liu joins the Whitman School this fall as an assistant professor in the Department of Supply Chain Management.

While pursuing her Ph.D., Liu co-published research on an unusual topic: hog farming. “This does sound funny, but it’s been a great opportunity for me,” she explains about the paper, “Managing Operations of a Hog Farm Facing Volatile Marketing: Inventory and Selling Strategies,” published in Manufacturing & Service Operations Management and presented at multiple conferences.

This research fits nicely into the study of supply chain management, as it looks at the planning problems of a pork producer who has to decide each week how many hogs are ready to go to market. The producer also must decide which hogs to sell to a meatpacker and on the open market and which to hold on to, while being under contract to deliver a fixed quantity of hogs to the meatpacker priced according to a predetermined market index.

According to Liu, this research has resulted in a dynamic programming approach that exploits the optimal policy structure and produces an alternative approach that is easy to implement. The managerial implications are that the success of the proposed model is attributed to recognizing the value of holding underweight hogs and effectively hedging supply uncertainty and future prices—an insight missed in the planning of the producer’s current practice. Liu is continuing this research using emergent data-driven tools by co-authoring a paper, “An Empirically Grounded Analytical (EGA) Approach to Hog Farm Finishing Stage Management: Deep Reinforcement Learning as Decision Support and Managerial Learning Tool.”

“My co-authors and I have had the opportunity to work with this huge hog production company to help solve some of its operational issues using the foundations of supply chain management,” she says. “We realized that this is a question that has never been studied, and now we have access to this data straight from the producer, giving us a near-optimal implementable strategy for selling the pigs. It’s a very unique application, and it reflects my other research philosophy of wanting to help companies with real world problems.”

Of course, pork production is only one aspect of her research interests. Overall, she is focusing her research on various supply chain issues related to AI, risk management, commodity markets, and supply chain finance, with analytical and data-driven methodologies, such as stochastic optimization, machine learning, and deep reinforcement learning.

“One of the things that drew me to join the Whitman School was meeting a group of people who shared some of my research interests, particularly in the interface of finance, operations and risk management,” she explains. “Although we use different methodologies, I am looking forward to working with these individuals and seeing their various approaches.”

Liu notes that the other reason she decided to pursue a career at Whitman is the diversity,  particularly how many women are on the faculty. “It’s rare to see the number of female faculty members that Whitman has,” she says. “It is apparent that this is an environment where women have the opportunity to lead research, and I am very excited to have my own opportunity to do the same.”

She will also share her expertise by teaching Supply Chain Management this fall. “I like teaching, and I learn so much during the process,” Liu explains. “It is fascinating when students pose different questions that sometimes I haven’t thought about myself. That kind of interaction helps me to be a better instructor and also fuels my thought processes, which is so interesting to me.”

“I am very excited to be a part of the Whitman School faculty and contribute to educating future business professionals, while also having the opportunity to continue to explore my research interests,” adds Liu. “It is a big step in my career, and I’m very optimistic about my future here.”

By Caroline K. Reff