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Saurabh Bansal

Color portrait of Saurabh Bansal

Professor of Supply Chain Management

Department Supply Chain & Information Systems
Office Address 405 Business Building
Phone Number 814-863-3797
Email Address sub32@psu.edu

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My research and teaching focus on three dimensions of supply chain and operations management:

a. Model and data driven understanding for how business managers perceive and estimate uncertainties,

b. Descriptive models for how they react to these uncertainties, and

c. Prescriptive optimization based models for how they should react to the uncertainties.

I collaborate with firms to develop new forecasting and optimization models to improve business performance.

Expertise

Decision Making Under Risk and Uncertainty.

Education

Ph D, Risk Analysis and Decision Making, The University of Texas at Austin, 2010

B. Tech, Industrial Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, 2002

Courses Taught

SCIS 596 – Individual Studies (Variable)
Creative projects, including nonthesis research, that are supervised on an individual basis and which fall outside the scope of formal courses. A specific title may be used in each instance and will be entered on the student's transcript.

SCM 494H – Research Project (Variable)
Supervised student activities on research projects identified on an individual or small-group basis.

BA 596 – Individual Studies (1)

BA 810 – SC Operations Mgmt (2)
Integration and application of decision making to operational and policy problems within the business firm.

SCM 570 – Supply Chn Modelng (2)
Explore current modeling methods and software for design, analysis, execution and integration of supply chains.

SCM 496 – Indep Studies (Variable)
Creative projects, including research and design, that are supervised on an individual basis and that fall outside the scope of formal courses.

SCM 596 – Individual Studies (4)
Creative projects, including nonthesis research, that are supervised on an individual basis and which fall outside the scope of formal courses.

SCM 530 – Meth Scm (3)
Methods and tools to support supply chain decision making with emphasis on forecasting, inventory analysis, and demand planning.

SCM 421 – Supply Chain Analytics (3)
Models and Methodologies for supply chain analysis.

SCM 421H – Supply Chain Analytics (3)
Models and Methodologies for supply chain analysis.

SC&IS 545 – Supply Chain Systems Simulation (3)
Application of computer simulation to analysis and design of supply chain and information systems design; simulation experiments in SC&IS research.

Selected Publications

Bansal S., Naumov S., Guide V., "Closed loop supply chains with product remanufacturing: Challanges and opportunities." Journal of Operations Management, vol. 70, no. 2, 2024, pp. 184-189
Wu W., Bansal S., Sharma R., "Three Mountains: Fairness Considerations for Workforce allocations." INFORMS Transacations on Education, 2024
Gao Y., Bansal S., Guide V., "Servicizing with a Multi-usecycle Business Model: Analysis and Insights." Production and Operations Management, vol. 32, no. 12, 2024
Bansal S., Keisler J., Siebert J., Jenni K., "Applying Decision Analysis to Diverse Domains: An Introduction to the Special Issue." INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics, vol. 53, no. 3, 2023, pp. 173-177
Mutha A., Bansal S., "Determining assortments of used products for B2B transactions in reverse supply chain." IISE Transactions, vol. 55, no. 10, 2023, pp. 1035-1048
Chen W., He Y., Bansal S., "Customized Dynamic Pricing when Customers Develop a Habit or Satiation." Operations Research, 2023
Bansal S., Muthulingam S., "Can Precise Numbers Boost Energy Efficiency?." Production and Operations Management, vol. 31, 2022, pp. 3264-3287
Mutha A., Bansal S., Guide V., "Servicizing Demands of a Company: The Need for Inter-Functional Coordinationon." Journal of Operations Management, vol. 68, 2022, pp. 408-420
Mani V., Thomas D. J., Bansal S., "Estimating Product Substitution and Basket Abandonment Effects in Retail stores: Implications for Assortment Planning." Management Science, vol. 68, no. 7, 2022, pp. 5002-5024
Bansal S., Nagarajan M., "A Monge sequence based stochastic programming approach to characterize the competitive newsvendor problem." Operations Research, vol. 70, no. 2, 2022, pp. 805-814
Bansal S., Sabbaghi M., Sharma R., "Should an Analyst Share Calibration Information with Experts?." Behavioral Decision Analysis, (Springer International Series in Operations Research and Management Science), 2022
Gupta S., Bansal S., "Optimal Market Integration Decisions by Policy Makers: Modeling and Analysis of Agriculture Market Data." Operations Research, vol. 70, no. 1, 2022, pp. 352-362
Bansal S., Nagarajan M., "Portfolio Management Issues in the Commercial Seed Industry: A Modeling Framework and Industry Implementation." Agricultural Supply Chain Management Research: Operations and Analytics in Planting, Selling, and Government Interventions, (Springer Series in Supply Chain Management), 2021
Bansal S., Gutierrez G., Nagarajan M., "Theory-driven Practical Approach to Integrate R&D and Production Planning for Portfolio Management in Agribusiness." INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics, vol. 51, no. 5, 2021, pp. 332-346
Mutha A., Bansal S., Guide V., "Managing the inter-functional tension between accounting- and financial-profits in remanufacturing multiple-usecycle products." Production and Operations Management, vol. 30, no. 9, 2021, pp. 2993-3014
Mutha A., Bansal S., Guide V., "ReCellular Inc: Managing Demand Uncertainty in Closed-Loop Remanufacturing." INFORMS Transactions on Education, 2021
Mutha A., Bansal S., Guide V., "Case Article: Managing Demand Uncertainty in Closed-Loop Remanufacturing." INFORMS Transactions on Education, 2021
Bansal S., Lougee R., "Introduction to the second edition of INFORMS Editor's Cut on Agribusiness." INFORMS, 2021
Bansal S., Lowe T., Jones P., "Case: Suncrest AgriBusiness Company: Exploiting the Flexibility of Backup Capacity." INFORMS Transactions on Education, 2020
Bansal S., Lowe T., Jones P., "Exploiting the Flexibility of Backup Capacity." INFORMS Transactions on Education, 2020
Bansal S., Lowe T., Jones P., "Case: Suncrest AgriBusiness Company: Exploiting the Flexibility of Backup Capacity." INFORMS Transactions on Education, 2020
Bansal S., Pachamanova D., "Introduction to the Special Issue on Nonconvex Portfolio Optimization." The Engineering Economist, vol. 64, no. 3, 2020, pp. 193-195
Bansal S., Gutierrez G., "Estimating uncertainties using judgmental forecasts with expert-heterogeneity." Operations Research, vol. 68, no. 2, 2020, pp. 363-380
Bansal S., Dyer J., "Managing customer-driven substitution in agribusiness." Operations Research, vol. 68, no. 4, 2020, pp. 1000-1019
Bansal S., Lowe T., Jones p., "The value of a second chance." OR/MS today, 2020
Mutha A., Bansal S., Guide V., "Selling Assortments of Used Products to Third-Party Remanufacturers." Production and Operations Management, vol. 28, no. 7, 2019, pp. 1792-1817
Oprean D., Simpson M., Miller R., Keller K., Bansal S., Klippel A. K., "Human Interpretation of Trade-Off Diagrams in Multi-Objective Problems: Implications for Developing Interactive Decision Support Systems." HICSS, 2019, pp. 1-10
Bansal S., Lougee R., "Introduction to the first edition of INFORMS Editor's Cut on Agribusiness." INFORMS, 2018
Bansal S., Rosokha Y., "Impact of compound and reduced risk specification on valuation of projects with multiple risks." Decision Analysis, vol. 15, no. 1, 2018, pp. 27-46
Bansal S., Dyer J., "Multivariate partial-expectation results for exact solutions of two-stage problems." Operations Research, vol. 65, no. 6, 2017, pp. 1526-1534
Bansal S., Nagarajan M., "Product portfolio management with production flexibility in agribusiness." Operations Research, vol. 65, no. 4, 2017, pp. 914-930
Bansal S., Gutierrez G., Keiser J., "Using experts’ noisy quantile judgments to quantify risks: theory and application to agribusiness." Operations Research, vol. 65, no. 5, 2017, pp. 1115-1130
Bansal S., Gutierrez G., Keiser J., "Quantifying uncertainties and risks using managerial judgments in a dynamic new product development environment." Production and Operations Management, vol. 25, 2016, pp. 2010-2013
Mutha A., Bansal S., Guide V., "Managing Demand Uncertainty through Core Acquisition in Remanufacturing." Production and Operations Management, vol. 25, no. 8, 2016, pp. 1449-1464
Bansal S., Moritz B. B., "Perceived Versus Actual Value of Operational Flexibility: An Experimental Investigation." Journal of Operations Management, vol. 38, 2015, pp. 56-70
Bansal S., Transchel S., "Managing Supply Risk of Vertically Differentiated Products." Production and Operations Management, vol. 23, 2014, pp. 1577-1598
Bansal S., Dyer J., "Updating Inventories of Substitutible Products with Forecasts Updates." Production and Operations Management, vol. 23, 2014, pp. 477-488

Research Impact and Media Mentions

"Wagner Award News release", Internet, www.informs.org/About-INFORMS/News-Room/Press-Releases/Research-Team-Recognized-with-INFORMS-Daniel-H.-Wagner-Prize-for-Solutions-to-Increase-Efficiency-in-Production-Planning-in-Agri
"40 under 40 Best Business School Professors", Poets and Quants, poetsandquants.com/2020/04/29/2020-best-40-under-40-professors-saurabh-bansal-the-pennsylvania-state-university-smeal-college-of-business/?pq-category=business-school-news
"Everyone's an expert, but a computer program may be able to pick the best ones", Assorted Media Websites, Internet, www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-08/ps-eae082417.php

Editorships

MS&OM, Associate Editor, January 2021 - Present
Informs Journal on Applied Analytics, Associate Editor, January 2020 - Present
Operations Research, Associate Editor, October 2019 - January 2024
Decision Analysis, Editorial Board, January 2019 - Present
The Engineering Economist, Co-Editor, April to December 2018
Special Issue on data-driven portfolio optimization.
Production and Operations Management, Associate Editor, March 2017 - Present
INFORMS Editor's Cut on Agribusiness, Co-Editor, February 2016 - Present
Printed volume also hosted on INFORMS website.

Honors and Awards

Senior Editor Award at Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, (Dec 31, 2024)
Winner, Decision Analysis Practice Award, INFORMS, (Dec 31, 2024)
Finalist, INFORMS Case Competition, INFORMS, (Dec 31, 2024)
Finalist, Biennial Applied Research Competition at POMS, Production and Operations Management Society, (Dec 31, 2024)
Finalist, INFORMS Case Competition, INFORMS, (Dec 31, 2023)
Finalist, Decision Analysis Practice Award, INFORMS, (Dec 31, 2023)
Winner, Decision Analysis Society Publication Award, INFORMS, (Dec 31, 2022)
Best MBA Core Professor, Smeal MBA Program, (Dec 31, 2022)
Best Supply Chain Management Professor, Smeal MBA Program, (Dec 31, 2021)
Winner, Decision Analysis Practice Award, INFORMS, (Dec 31, 2021)
40 Under 40 Professors by Poets and Quants, (Dec 31, 2020)
Winner, Wagner Prize for the practice of Operations Research and Management Science, INFORMS, (Dec 31, 2020)
Senior Editor Award, Production and Operations Management Society, (Dec 31, 2019)
Winner, INFORMS Case Competition, INFORMS, (Dec 31, 2019)
Best Supply Chain Management Professor, Smeal MBA Program, (Dec 31, 2018)
Finalist, Biennial Applied Research Competition, Production and Operations Management Society, (Dec 31, 2016)
Finalist, Decision Analysis Society of INFORMS Practice Award, Decision Analysis Society, (Dec 31, 2015)
Honorable Mention, Society of Judgment and Decision Making Student Research Competition, Society of Judgment and Decision Making, (Dec 31, 2015)
Emerging Scholars Program, Production and Operations Management Society, (Dec 31, 2013)
Dillwyn P. Paiste, III Teaching Award, Smeal College of Business, (Dec 31, 2012)
The University of Texas Continuing Fellowship, The University of Texas at Austin, (Dec 31, 2009)
Nominated, Fred Moore Teaching Award, The University of Texas at Austin, (Dec 31, 2009)
Bonham Fund Scholarship, The University of Texas at Austin, (Dec 31, 2006)
William Cooper Scholarship, The University of Texas at Austin, (Dec 31, 2005)