Human-in-the-Loop Vehicle Routing for Balancing Efficiency, Fairness, and Resource Constraints in Volunteer-Driven Food Bank Supply Chains
Distinguished Research Seminar Series
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Date
22 Jul 2026
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Organiser
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, PolyU
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Time
16:00 - 17:00
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Venue
DE402
Speaker
Prof. Sadan Kulturel‐Konak
Remarks
If you have enquiries regarding E-certificate after the seminar, please contact david.kuo@polyu.edu.hk.
Summary
Food banks face significant operational challenges due to limited resources, reliance on volunteers, and the need to serve numerous partner agencies within constrained schedules. This study examines the delivery planning problem for a regional food bank, where frequent, sometimes redundant deliveries to volunteer-operated agencies create inefficiencies, while rising demand and limited transportation capacity make it difficult to ensure timely and equitable service. Because delivery schedules must also accommodate volunteer availability and stakeholder preferences, optimization alone is insufficient. We propose a human-in-the-loop decision framework that integrates a Vehicle Routing Problem with Soft Time Windows (VRPSTW), demand management strategies, and large-scale local search algorithms to generate efficient and practical delivery schedules. The framework explicitly incorporates stakeholder feedback, enabling decision makers to evaluate and refine routing solutions based on operational realities that are difficult to capture in mathematical models alone. By combining optimization with human expertise, the proposed approach supports data-driven decisions that improve delivery efficiency while balancing fairness, resource constraints, and the practical realities of volunteer-driven food bank operations.
Keynote Speaker
Prof. Sadan Kulturel‐Konak
Professor
Engineering, Business Computing Division, Pennsylvania State University, Berks
Sadan Kulturel‐Konak is a Professor of Management Information Systems and Director of the Flemming Creativity, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Development (CEED) Center at Penn State Berks. She also holds a courtesy appointment in the Harold and Inge Marcus Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at Penn State. Dr. Kulturel earned her Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Auburn University. Her research focuses on modeling and optimizing complex systems through hybrid approaches that integrate artificial intelligence, data analytics, operations research, and optimization. Her work addresses challenging real-world problems in areas such as facility design, humanitarian logistics, and food bank resource distribution, with an emphasis on improving efficiency, resilience, and equity. She also conducts evidence-based research on entrepreneurship education, innovation, and STEM pedagogy. Dr. Kulturel currently serves as the elected Chair of the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Zone I. She previously served as the elected President of the INFORMS Women in OR/MS (WORMS), as the elected Chair of the INFORMS Facility Logistics Special Interest Group, and as the elected Chair of the ASEE Middle Atlantic Section. She also served as an academic member of the College Industry Council on Material Handling Education (CICMHE) and is an Associate Editor of Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence (Elsevier). Dr. Kulturel has served as principal investigator on numerous externally funded research and education projects supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and VentureWell. She is a member of INFORMS, IISE, and ASEE.
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