PhD Defence Joydeep Paul
In his dissertation 'Online Grocery Operations in Omni-channel Retailing: Opportunities and Challenges', Joydeep Paul explored capacity sharing strategies between the vehicles of store replenishment and online fulfilment in buy-online-pick-up-in-store omni-channel model. Through an extensive numerical study, he shows that significant savings in distribution costs can be achieved by sharing capacity of vehicles across two channels. Alongside the planning aspects, he also studied the interaction between the online and store channel in an omni-channel setting. Joydeep defended his dissertation on Thursday, 10 March 2022 at 13:00. His supervisors were Prof. Rene de Koster (RSM) and Dr. Niels Agatz (RSM). Other members of the Doctoral Committee were Prof. Jan Fransoo (Tilburg University), Dr Remy Spliet (ESE). and Prof. Catherine Cleophas(University of Kiel).
About Joydeep Paul
Joydeep Paul was born in Tripura, India on April 26, 1988. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial
Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur - India. He obtained his double Master’s degree in Supply Chain Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta - USA and in Logistics and Supply Chain Management from National University of Singapore, Singapore. Prior to starting his doctoral studies, Joydeep worked at Singapore Post in Singapore for around 3 years in setting up their last-mile delivery network in South-east Asia. In September 2015, he joined the Department of Technology and Operations Management at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University for his doctoral studies under the supervision of Prof. René de Koster and Dr. Niels Agatz.
Joydeep’s research interests revolve around optimization in last-mile logistics in omnichannel retail with specific focus on the grocery retail. His work has been published in renowned journals like the European Journal of Operational Research and Transportation Research Part B: Methodological. He has also presented his research at several international conferences such as POMS Annual Meeting, TRISTAN, VeRoLog and Odysseus.
In August 2019, Joydeep joined Coolblue as Manager for their network and route planning operations of truck and bike delivery in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. Currently, Joydeep is working as Management Consulting Manager for supply chain operations at Accenture - the Netherlands.
Thesis Abstract
Online grocery has grown rapidly in different parts of the world over the last two decades. However, it is still not clear whether online grocery retailing can be profitable in the long run. Grocery retail is a low margin, high-cost business. Picking and delivering an online grocery order is labor intensive and costly. The delivery fee typically does not cover all the fulfilment costs. Many grocery retailers are making substantial investments to develop an online sales channel next to the traditional stores. With the emergence of omnichannel grocery retail, customers are provided with a seamless experience across online and offline channels. There are many synergies that exist between online and offline distribution, which if utilized properly can lead to significant cost savings to the retailer.
In this thesis we explore capacity sharing strategies between the vehicles of store replenishment and online fulfilment in buy-online-pick-up-in-store omni-channel model. Through an extensive numerical study, we show that significant savings in distribution costs can be achieved by sharing capacity of vehicles across two channels. Alongside the planning aspects, we also study the interaction between the online and store channel in an omni-channel setting. Our results show that online profitability increases with household density and decreases with store density. We also find that that an increase in the popularity of the online channel could substantially impact the current dynamics to the point where it would be profitable to reduce the number of physical stores.
View photos of Joydeep's PhD Defence
Photos: Elise Ntoremi / Your PhD Photo
