Stanley Lim

Stanley Lim is an assistant professor of supply chain management in the Department of Supply Chain Management and faculty affiliate with 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. His research examines operational challenges in downstream, or so-called "last-mile," supply chains. He is recognized for his practical and managerial approach, grounding his work in real-world applications. By adopting an interdisciplinary perspective that combines operations management, marketing, and economics and utilizing customer behavior analytics, Stanley's aim is to advance the theory and practice of operation. He strives to provide businesses with practical insights on how to distribute their products and services to end consumers effectively, under various conditions.

In doing so, he contributes to the understanding of the economics of distribution services in digital and nondigital retail. This encompasses the four core services (or the four A's) that retailers provide to reduce consumers' search and transaction costs: (1) accessibility of location and information, (2) availability of inventory, (3) assurance of product delivery, and (4) assortment planning. His current research applications include omni-channel retailing, food waste management, and package delivery.

Based on this research agenda, Stanley has developed analytical models for store network and facility location design, workload and job assignments, and service policies. These include, for example, models to predict failed delivery attempts and incorporating the predictions in routing, estimate the opportunity cost of product stockouts for inventory planning, determine the optimal return window for consumer return policies, and evaluate spatial competition to guide store market area design. Additionally, he has explored the impact of contract terms on the bargaining power and economic outcomes of retailers and suppliers, the relationship between drivers' workload and delivery performance, the influence of subscription models on consumer behaviors, and consumers' sensitivities to lead times and their product return behaviors across digital and nondigital channels. 

Stanley reviews for Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, Journal of Operations Management, Journal of Business Logistics, Naval Research Logistics, and Decision Sciences Journal. He serves as an associate editor at Journal of Operations Management. He has also served as a guest associate editor for a special issue on omni-channel retailing and is co-editing a special issue on innovations, technologies, and the economics of last-mile operations at the same journal. For his reviewing activities, he received the 2023 Management Science Distinguished Service Award and the 2022 Academy of Management's Operations and Supply Chain Management Division Outstanding Reviewer Award. He frequently serves as session chairs on empirical retail operations and economics of retail distribution services at INFORMS and POMS annual conferences. He co-chaired the POM-Economics Interface track at the 2023 Annual POMS Conference and is co-chairing the Supply Chain Management track at the 2023 DSI Annual Conference and the Retail Operations track at the 2024 Annual POMS Conference. In addition, he is Co-Chair of Research for the 2024 DSI Annual Conference. Stanley welcomes opportunities for new collaborations.

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

Lim, S.F.W.T., Rabinovich, E., Lee, S. and Park, S. 2023. Estimating stockout costs and optimal stockout rates: A case on the management of ugly produce inventory. Management Science (Under review after minor revision).Lim, S.F.W.T., Gao, F. and Tan, T.F. 2023. Channel changes choice: An empirical study about omnichannel demand sensitivity to fulfillment lead time. Management Science, forthcoming.Lim, S.F.W.T. 2023. Companies lose billions on deliveries that don’t make it to customers: Here are some easy fixes. Harvard Business Review, forthcoming.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.