About
Dr David Lai is a Lecturer of Southampton Business School at the University of Southampton. His research interests are in the broad areas of Supply Chain and Management Science. David’s current research is within the fields of Mathematical Optimisation in Green Logistics. He develops novel solution approaches in Operational Research and Artificial Intelligence to analyse and understand complex decision-making problems in the context of green logistics and transportation.
Research
Research groups
Research interests
- Green Logistics
- Vehicle Routing
- Manpower Planning
- Intermodal Transportation
- Warehousing
Current research
David has worked for over 10 years in different fields, including last mile logistics, freight transportation, vehicle routing, manpower planning, warehousing, supply chain optimisation, and production planning. In terms of methodology, he is specialised in exploiting mathematical structures to invent efficient solution approaches such as branch-and-cut, column generation, metaheuristic and simulation. Furthermore, David has been collaborating with industry partners and delivering research-based decision support systems that address real-life challenges.
Publications
Teaching
David has experience in teaching subjects such as decision making in supply chains, transport and logistics, mathematical modelling, and simulation. He has supervised undergraduate and postgraduate students from a variety of academic backgrounds on topics such as green vehicle routing, intermodal transportation, warehousing, production planning and etc.
Biography
Prior to joining the University of Southampton, David was an assistant professor in Eindhoven University of Technology (2020 - 2022) and VU Amsterdam (2014 - 2020). You can find his publications in leading academic journals including European Journal of Operational Research, Transportation Science, Transportation Research Part-E, Computers & Operations Research, and Transportmetrica. He serves as a reviewer in several leading operational research and transportation journals, and presents regularly at international conferences.
Prizes
- INFORMS Annual Meeting 2012 Phoenix (Poster Award Winner) (2012)