Posted on Jan 23, 2018

7 – 10 January 2018

The School of Decision Sciences and the Policy Research Institute of Global Supply Chain were honoured to be a partner with INFORMS TSL to host the 6th INFORMS Transportation Science and Logistics Society Workshop at Hang Seng Management College from 7 – 10 January 2018.

Forty-eight researchers presented their recent work on the topics of green urban logistics, business module of urban logistics, revenue management, last mile delivery, e-Commerce, collaborative logistics and ridesharing, vehicle routing etc. during the three days’ event. In addition to the academic presentations, the Workshop also featured companies visit hosted by Hutchison Ports and Power Hub Limited.

As the highlight of the 3-day Workshop, we organised an Industry Panel on 10 January, bringing together business leaders, industry experts and academics to share thoughts and insights on e-Commerce and urban logistics in the region and worldwide. It attracted nearly 100 participants from overseas and local universities, business leaders in China and Hong Kong.
We are very delighted to have six distinguished panel speakers to share their expertise on the theme: Mr. Stephen CHAN, Managing Director, Power Hub Limited; Mr. Bing FU, Vice-President, Head of Logistics Planning & Development, JD Logistics; Mr. Reeve KWAN, Co-founder of GOGOVAN; Dr. Anthony LAU, Chairman, Pacific Air Limited; Mr. K.K. LEUNG, President, UPS North Asia District and Mr. Jeffrey TSE, Strategic Partner Manager, Alibaba HK Limited.

Ms. Beth Bao, Director of JD Logistics Strategic Planning delivered the talk together with Mr. Fu, focused on exploring the picking path optimization, the dynamic routing planning, smart delivery and unmanned technology; to find solutions and meet the challenges in large-scale urban delivery for E-Commerce. They also pointed out that, “should the logistics industry be in form of technology-driven logistics or logistics technology in the future”?

Mr. Stephen Chan talked about the positioning of SME in the E-Commerce era. He considered SME can stay competitive by making a balance between automation and investment. In addition, source of experienced and trainable labour force and the availability of infrastructure were also crucial.

Mr. Reeve Kwan shared with participants the current operations of GOGOVAN which is the first on-demand logistics and transportation platform in Asia. Their success was on the wisely application of data through different analytic tools on route, product, driver profiling, scheduling, etc.

Dr. Anthony Lau shared his experiences on the major changes of E-Commerce in the past 10 years and future development, especially in China. With fast development in E-Commerce, Dr. Lau highlighted an issue: “if positive or negative impacts will be incurred for job opportunities?”

Mr. K.K. Leung shared his insights on the trends of online shopping in Asia, how important to maintain the post sales services and the key of delivery flexibility. With the rapid growing of online shoppers, Mr. Leung considered the in-store shopping still has a role and important.

Mr. Jeffrey Tse talked about the Alibaba ecosystem and he mentioned that China is the largest E-Retail market in the world and has world’s largest mobile internet user base. Mr. Tse explained how Alibaba linked up the global suppliers with global buyers through their global network.

After the individual presentation by panelists, with Dr. Jeff YEUNG, Director, Knowledge Transfer Center, the Chinese University of Hong Kong as moderator, a panel discussion was carried out. The panelists shared their views and exchanged ideas on the perspective of Hong Kong’s logistics industry. Discussions were carried out on the topics related to: how to manage the “Bullwhip Effect”; if the Cantonese old saying “When you are young if you do not study hard and later you are going to join the transportation industry” was still applied to this generations; what HK should do to maintain our international hub position; how to encourage students to join the logistics industry after graduation, etc.