Events Calendar

METRANS SEMINAR SERIES

Speaker: Dr. Maged Dessouky, Christine Nguyen, Dr. Alejandro Toriello and Dr. James Moore, Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

Talk Title: "The California Cut Flower Industry: A Case for Transportation Consolidation"

Series: METRANS

Abstract: The California Cut Flower Commission is a state government agency created to promote California-grown cut flowers and foliage. CCFC is responsible for representing all of California's cut flower and green farms. California flower farmers' largest competitors are South American farmers, particularly Colombian and Ecuadorian, who have benefitted from the 1991 Andean Trade Preference Act. The law cut import tariffs from South American nations on a range of goods, resulting in Colombia capturing 75% of the U.S. flower market. Meanwhile California's market share has decreased from 64% to 20%.
This paper evaluates the California cut flower industry's current transportation practices and investigates the feasibility and cost of establishing a shipping consolidation center in Oxnard, California. The problem is formulated using a Mixed-Integer programming model. The model estimates a 34.8% shipping cost decrease, $20M, if all California farms participated in the consolidation center. Our analysis of estimated cut-flower trade flows originating from Miami shows that the magnitudes of these flows are relatively sensitive to shipping cost, controlling for market size.

*RSVP to Shawn Gong, TGong@usc.edu, by Noon, September 13, 2011 (Lunch will be provided for RSVPs)

Biography: Dr. Maged Dessouky, Professor, Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, USC, received his B.S./M.S. degrees in IE from Purdue University and his Ph.D. degree in IEOR from UC Berkeley. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Society of Manufacturing Engineers, PATH, Caltrans, FTA, and Department of Defense. He was recipient of the 2007 Transportation Science & Logistics Best Paper Prize. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial Engineers. He is area editor of Computers & Industrial Engineering, ACM Transactions of Modeling and Computer Simulation, IIE Transactions.

Host: METRANS Transportation Center, USC/CSULB

More Information: METRANS Seminar_09142011_Dessouky.pdf

Location: Ralph And Goldy Lewis Hall (RGL) - Room 209

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Georgia Lum