For over 15 years, the International Logistics and Productivity Improvement Laboratory (previously known as Electronics Assembly Laboratory) at Arizona State University has performed industry-oriented research within three main areas.
First, it focuses on Supply Chain & Logistics. The industry-sponsored projects comprised in this area deal with logistics and operations topics that range from the design of e.g. logistics platforms and efficient shipping port infrastructure to the development of food defense strategies in the international fresh produce trade.
The second focus is on Quality & Productivity. The collection of industry-sponsored projects under this research area deal mainly with quality and productivity improvement of production systems. The range of projects include: the development of inspection routines for surface mounted devices, the development of efficient aircraft boarding strategies, and the creation of efficiency measures for inbound logistics.
Thirdly, the focus is on Marketing & Strategic Planning. Studies in this area deal with the development of marketing and strategic plans under different scenarios including e.g. the development of restructured supply chain strategies for the fresh produce industry, the application of option pricing for capacity planning, and the use of optimization techniques to estimate the economic impact of the immigrant agricultural labor force on U.S. local communities.
Our current point of effort is a combination of these 3 focuses into the TERRa-fresh platform. TERRa-Fresh, Technology Enabled Rapid Response FRESH supply chain, uses supply chain and logistics to predict Market Opportunities. Small farmers will use these tools to help them plan strategically to take advantage of the market and improve their productivity and profits.