Stanley Lim

Stanley Lim is an associate professor in the Department of Supply Chain Management, founder and co-director of the Food Access & Supply Chain Technology (FAST) Lab, and a faculty affiliate of the Evolution and Future of Work Research Initiative at Michigan State University. He holds a Ph.D. in Supply Chain Management from the University of Cambridge, a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and an M.B.A. from Warwick Business School.

Stanley is an empirical operations economist. His research examines the economics of distribution services and operational challenges in downstream, or so-called "last-mile," supply chains under operational and societal constraints. Methodologically, he employs causal inference and large-scale field data, complemented by analytical and optimization models, to analyze operational trade-offs and welfare implications. His work has applications in both online and brick-and-mortar retail, local package delivery, and food supply chains, with a particular focus on food waste reduction and recovery efforts. By adopting a cross-domain perspective that integrates operations management, marketing, and economics with customer behavior analytics, his research advances both the theory and practice of retail logistics and provides organizations with actionable guidance on how to distribute their products and services to end consumers efficiently under various conditions.

A central theme of his research is how firms create value by reducing consumers' search and transaction costs through four core distribution services, the "four A's": accessibility, availability, assurance, and assortment. His work deepens understanding of these mechanisms in both digital and nondigital retail contexts, with implications for last-mile delivery performance, retail operations design, and food system efficiency. Recognized for his data-driven, interdisciplinary approach, and strong grounding in real-world applications, his research has been honored as a finalist for the INFORMS Daniel H. Wagner Prize and as a semi-finalist for the INFORMS Innovative Applications in Analytics Award. He regularly provides expert commentary on these topics for major media outlets, including Fox News, the Associated Press, NBCUniversal, MarketWatch (a subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co.), WILX News 10, The Detroit News, and Detroit Free Press. 

Based on this research agenda, Stanley has developed analytical models for store network and facility location design, service zoning, workload and job assignments, volunteer management, and new service policies. His work includes models that predict failed delivery attempts and integrate those predictions into routing decisions, estimate the opportunity cost of product stockouts for inventory planning, determine optimal return windows for consumer return policies, and evaluate spatial competition to guide store market area design. He has also studied the effects of contract terms on retailer-supplier bargaining power and their economic outcomes, the relationship between delivery workload and performance, the impact of subscription programs on consumer behaviors, and consumers' sensitivities to lead times and their product return behaviors across channels. 

Stanley's research appears in Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, Harvard Business Review, and MIT Sloan Management Review. He serves as an associate editor for the special issue on operations management for developing economies and the special issue on responsible retail operations at Manufacturing & Service Operations Management and has previously co-edited a special issue on innovations, technologies, and the economics of last-mile operations, as well as served as an associate editor for the special issue on omni-channel retailing at Journal of Operations Management. He is an active reviewer for leading journals, including Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, Journal of Operations Management, Journal of Business Logistics, Decision Sciences Journal, Naval Research Logistics, and Service Science. For his reviewing activities, he has received multiple honors, including the 2024 Decision Sciences Journal Best Reviewer Award, 2023 Management Science Distinguished Service Award, 2025, 2024 and 2023 M&SOM Meritorious Service Award, and the 2025 and 2022 Academy of Management's Operations and Supply Chain Management Division Outstanding Reviewer Award.

Stanley regularly organizes and chairs sessions on empirical retail operations and economics of retail distribution services at INFORMS and POMS annual conferences. He served as Chair of Research (Research Tracks) for the 2024 Decision Sciences Institute Annual Conference and has co-chaired several research tracks, including Agricultural and Food Supply Chains (2026 DSI), Supply Chain Management (2026 POMS and 2023 DSI), Empirical Research in Operations Management (2025 POMS), Retail Operations (2024 POMS), and the POM-Economics Interface (2023 POMS). He has also served as a member of the 2026 and 2025 INFORMS Daniel H. Wagner Prize Committee. He currently serves as President of the POMS College of Supply Chain Management, Co-Chair of the Agricultural and Food Supply Chains track at 2027 POMS Annual Conference, and as a member of the INFORMS Committee on Industry-Academia Collaborations. He welcomes opportunities for new collaborations.

*** I am actively looking for self-motivated visiting scholars and PhDs and research assistants to work with me across causal inference, structural estimation, optimization, and advanced machine learning with applications in retail, logistics, and food supply chains. Please contact me if you are interested. ***

Huang, J., Lim, S.F.W.T. and Akturk, M.S. 2024. Third-party delivery platforms. Management Science (Under review after major revision decision).Wang, L., Lim, S.F.W.T. and Rabinovich, E. 2024. Stem distance and impact on courier choices. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (Under review after major revision decision).Mirzaeian, N., Lim, S.F.W.T. and Wang, S. 2025. Boxless shipping: Balancing Sustainability and Security in Package Delivery. Management Science (Under revision after major revision decision).Wei, J., Li, X. and Lim, S.F.W.T. 2026. Data-driven bundling with driver preferences in crowd-sourced logistics. INFORMS Journal on Computing (Under revision after major revision decision).Zhang, P., Jiang, R., Lyu, G. and Lim, S.F.W.T. 2026. Dynamic robust integer optimization with cost uncertainty. Operations Research (Under revision).Lim, S.F.W.T. and Su, X. 2026. Temporal bracketing and performance incentives: Evidence from a field experiment in last-mile delivery. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (Under review).

Lim, S.F.W.T. and Wu, C. 2026. We volunteer alone together: A field experiment on self identity in last-mile food rescue operations. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (Under revision after minor revision decision).

Ozdemir, B. and Lim, S.F.W.T. 2027. Revitalizing the grocery store experience: An empirical study on spillover effects of experiential services. Production and Operations Management, forthcoming.

Carlsson, J., Lim, S.F.W.T., Liu, S. and Yu, H. 2026. Equitable delivery zoning for last-mile logistics: A framework validated with implementation. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, forthcoming.Zhao, Y., Luo, Z., Lim, S.F.W.T., Chen, C. and Sim, M. 2026. Service oriented considerate routing: Data, predictions and robust decisions. Management Science, forthcoming.Lim, S.F.W.T. 2026. Multichannel experience, product attributes, and consumer return behavior: An empirical analysis. Production and Operations Management, 35(8): 3063–3081.Lim, S.F.W.T. 2025. How grocery retail innovations change customer behavior. MIT Sloan Management Review, 67(2): 23–25.Lim, S.F.W.T., Rabinovich, E., Lee, S. and Park, S. 2025. Estimating stockout costs and optimal stockout rates: A case on the management of ugly produce inventory. Management Science, 71(4): 3106–3126.
Lim, S.F.W.T. 2024. Cutting last-mile delivery costs: New tactics can boost profitability and satisfaction with subscription services. MIT Sloan Management Review, 66(2): 15–17.Lim, S.F.W.T., Gao, F. and Tan, T.F. 2024. Channel changes choice: An empirical study about omnichannel demand sensitivity to fulfillment lead time. Management Science, 70(5): 2954–2975.Lim, S.F.W.T. 2023. Research: Why so many packages don’t get delivered. Harvard Business Review. Available  at https://hbr.org/2023/11/research-why-so-many-packages-dont-get-delivered.Lim, S.F.W.T., Wang, Q. and Webster, S. 2023. Do it right the first time: Vehicle routing with home delivery attempt predictors. Production and Operations Management, 32(4): 1262–1284.
Lim, S.F.W.T., Richards, T.J., Rabinovich, E. and Choi, M. 2022. Scan based trading and bargaining equilibrium: A structural estimation of supply chain profit. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 24(4): 2328–2348.Lim, S.F.W.T., Rabinovich, E., Park, S. and Hwang, M. 2021. Shopping activity at warehouse club stores and its competitive and network density implications. Production and Operations Management, 30(1): 28–46.Lim, S.F.W.T. and Winkenbach, M. 2019. Configuring the last-mile in business-to-consumer e-retailing. California Management Review, 61(2): 132–154.