Supply chains are the networks that link raw materials to end-customers; supply chain management (SCM) is essential for any organization that produces or delivers products. In SCM, Dr. Swann develops and analyzes implementable policies that link tools to manage demand (e.g., pricing or leadtime) with production or service processes to improve flexibility, customer service, and profits. She integrates concepts from economics with optimization to develop innovative models that bring human aspects into SCM. Supply chains for disaster response or other non-profit purposes is a particular interest.

Dr. Swann also answers important questions in health policy by linking mathematical modeling with data analysis. Her two research areas are connected by methodologies used as well as the kinds of incentive problems that arise, and they also show her ability to work in more than one area effectively. Dr. Swann has provided leadership and has been successful at collaborating with others, including ISyE PhD students and faculty, CDC researchers, and industry, further ensuring relevance and impact.

Supply Chain Management and Pricing

Demand Management and Segmentation: Dr. Swann has developed models with the novel idea of treating inventory as a tactical tool where a firm may use inventory to match supply and demand over time; this is particularly important if firms are capacity-constrained or experience variability.

Pricing and Revenue Management: Another tool in matching supply and demand is Revenue Management (RM), which is concerned with allocating limited resources at the right time and price to the right customer; in low-margin industries it can be crucial for viability. Dr. Swann has brought RM research to new fields including sports and entertainment (S&E) and the automotive industries.

Decentralized Systems/Humanitarian Supply Chains: Most optimization models have been designed for centralized planners, although many systems actually operate in a decentralized fashion with individual decision-makers. Dr. Swann developed innovative decentralized modeling and optimization strategies with applications to the sea cargo industry as one example. This area has many applications in humanitarian response systems. Ongoing work includes analyzing self-routing customers and the value of information.

Dr. Swann studies decentralized systems more generally in her leadership to improve planning and response for disaster logistics . She traveled to Africa to work with World Vision International and to El Salvador to present to governmental and industry leaders. She has initiated efforts to write case studies with several private companies and has ongoing work to study food distribution in a flu pandemic for the American Red Cross. She is Co-founder and Co-director of the Humanitarian Logistics Research Center in the Supply Chain and Logistics Institute (SCL) at GT.

Dr. Swann's research in this area has been complemented by her leadership/service activities. In 2006, Dr. Swann chaired the national Multi-Echelon conference hosted at Georgia Tech and gave the conference a theme for the first time (“Public Applications of Supply Chain Research”). She was invited by the National Academy of Engineering to co-organize the 2006 U.S. Frontiers of Engineering Symposium for emerging leaders across engineering; her section was on SCM, with an emphasis on public impact.

Healthcare Policy

Dr. Swann's interest in public impact extends to healthcare where she is a leader in bringing operations research tools to bear on health policy questions. She publishes in math/engineering journals to spread knowledge to the academic community, and in high-impact medical journals, which informs practitioners and public health officials.

Health Access/Delivery: One key area of Dr. Swann's research is to increase the overall health of the population by improving health care access or delivery. Some examples of work in this area include integrating optimization techniques with statistical estimations of demand to improve resource allocation decisions. She also has work estimating dental caries in high risk populations and informational asymmetries in the dental markets in the United States.

Disease Modeling for Policy: Dr. Swann has also answered policy questions for specific diseases, using methodologies similar to her work in SCM/pricing. Examples include study of the timing of disease screening for Hepatitis C, and mathematical modeling to model behavioral aspects affecting HIV transmission.

See publications in each of these areas under the "Publications" tab.