BEA522 Rural Logistics

• Topics

  Remote, and rural areas present special challenges in terms of logistics and transportation planning. Low densities of people, long distances, and difficult access conditions make logistics and transportation activities and, therefore, planning, very different from planning and operations in cities and densely populated areas. For example, access to services as well as their timing and uncertainty could be much more important than capacity - the ship is never full, but is there a ship? When ? Almost half the world’s population lives in such areas, yet the existing literature does not well cover logistic and transportation issues related with rural areas.

  The course focuses on issues and models related to planning logistics and transportation services in remote and rural areas, including the High North. Professors from Europe and Canada will lecture and interact with PhD students from several countries.

  This course covers the following modules:

  • Introduction
  • Logistics & transportation
  • Digitalization in rural areas
  • Uncertainty
  • Healthcare and humanitarian logistics in underserved areas
  • Collaborative logistics
  • What is next?

• Learning outcome

  After completion of the course, the candidate are able to:

  Knowledge:

  • Understand the logistic planning challenges faced in areas with a low density of people, long distances and difficult access conditions.
  • Identify how logistic planning in rural areas fundamentally differ from logistic planning in densely populated areas.
  • Understand how to apply the principles of operations management and operations research to tackle the challenges posed by the rural logistic applications.

  Skills:

  • Propose solution approaches to the different challenges faced in rural logistic applications.
  • Analyze and evaluate potential different solution approaches and its suitability for different applications.

  General competence:

  • Evaluate the potential as well as the limitations of different solutions approaches for logistic problems.
  • Communicate and bridge the gap between the operations management and operations research principles and feasible real-world approaches.

• Teaching

  Students are required to read 6 papers before the lectures start as well as partake in some other preparatory activities prior to the lectures.

  Each day the students will attend two lectures of 3 hours each. At the end of each day, there will be 30 minutes sessions for open discussions.

  In this course, we wish to use different pedagogical approaches (not all will be used in all themes):

  • Lectures;
  • Case studies;
  • Open discussions;

• Restricted access

  Open to all candidates in a PhD program

• Required prerequisites

  Advance knowledge on operations management and operations research.

• Compulsory Activity

  Participation is mandatory.

  Compulsory activities (work requirements) are valid for one semester after the semester they were obtained.

• Assessment

  The students must deliver an individual essay on one of the topics of the course two weeks after the classes finish. (100%)

  Re-take is offered the semester after the course was offered for students with valid compulsory activities (work requirements).

• Grading Scale

  Pass - fail