Call for PhD Applications : Sustainable Phosphate-Enriched Products Supply Chain Optimization

PhD Supervisors:

• Dr. Tarik Aouam (Full Professor in Decision Sciences & Operations) 
• Additional co-supervisors will be drawn from an international consortium (from Canada, France and the US) to match each doctoral topic.

Project description

The SOLA research center (Sustainable Operations and Logistics in Africa) is launching a multi-year flagship project that will design, validate, and pilot decision-support tools to optimize the end-to-end supply chain of phosphate-enriched products. Combining advanced analytics (AI, ML, statistics) with state-of-the-art Operations Research, the project tackles strategic, tactical, and operational decisions, from demand forecasting and network design to inventory, production, and maritime routing, to deliver a resilient, low-carbon, and cost-efficient supply chain for OCP.

Four tightly coupled work-packages projects structure the effort and each PhD position will focus on one of them, ensuring deep expertise.

Doctoral Research Topic (one position per topic) 

Project 1 :

Indicative PhD Topic : Data-driven market analysis and robust demand forecasting for emerging product segments

Illustrative literature : Anava, O., Hazan, E., & Zeevi, A. (2015). Online Time Series Prediction with Missing Data. In Proceedings of the 32nd International Conference on Machine Learning (pp. 2191–2199).

Taesung Kim, Jinhee Kim, Yunwon Tae, Cheonbok Park, Jang-Ho Choi, & Jaegul Choo (2022). Reversible Instance Normalization for Accurate Time-Series Forecasting against Distribution Shift. In International Conference on Learning Representations.

Project 2 :

Indicative PhD Topic : Resilient and sustainable supply-chain-network design under demand and policy uncertainty

Illustrative literature : Cordeau JF, Klibi W, Nickel S (2021) Logistics network design. Network Design with Applications to Transportation and Logistics, 599–625.

Klibi W, Martel A, Guitouni A (2010b) The design of robust value-creating supply chain networks: a critical review. European Journal of Operational Research 203(2):283–293.

Project 3 :

Indicative PhD Topic : Multi-echelon inventory positioning and sizing with carbon-aware uncertainty modelling

Illustrative literature : Ghadimi, F., Aouam, T., & Uzsoy, R. (2023). Safety stock placement with market selection under load-dependent lead times. IISE Transactions, 55(3), 314-328.

Kumar, K., & Aouam, T. (2019). Extending the strategic safety stock placement model to consider tactical production smoothing. European Journal of Operational Research, 279(2), 429-448.

Project 4 :

Indicative PhD Topic : Integrated production–distribution planning with AI-assisted optimization heuristics

Illustrative literature : Absi, N., Cattaruzza, D., Feillet, D., Ogier, M., & Semet, F. (2020). A heuristic branch-cut-and-price algorithm for the ROADEF/EURO challenge on Inventory Routing. Transportation Science, 54(2), 313-329.

Absi, N., Archetti, C., Dauzère-Pérès, S., & Feillet, D. (2015). A two-phase iterative heuristic approach for the production routing problem. Transportation Science, 49(4), 784-795.

Generic Research Questions

Forecasting: How can multimodal data (sales, macro-economics, weather, competitor moves) be merged to improve demand signal quality in volatile markets?

• Network design: Which facility, hub, and fleet configurations minimize total cost and emissions while safeguarding against geopolitical or price shocks?
• Inventory and planning: What inventory policies and production plans balance service level, sustainability targets, and robustness to transport disruption?
• Maritime logistics: How can real-time routing and scheduling reduce delays and carbon footprint for combined fertilizer and phosphate based products cargoes?

Skills

You have :

• A solid quantitative background (statistics, mathematical optimization, or machine learning) and good programming skills (C++/Python/Julia/R, optimization solvers).
• High interest in sustainable supply chains, agri-food systems, and applied research with industrial impact.
• Excellent written and spoken English; French is a plus.
• Ability to work independently and as part of an interdisciplinary, international team.

Please ensure that all required documents are uploaded before the deadline "14th July" via the SuccessFactors platform.

The required documents include:

Curriculum Vitae (CV)

Cover Letter

Research Proposal

Master’s Degree Certificate and Transcripts

Two Recommendation Letters

Please note that all documents must be uploaded through the SuccessFactors platform. Once your account is created, navigate to your Profile, then to the Documents tab to upload your files.

Supervisor information

Prof. Tarik Aouam is Full Professor of Production, Logistics & Operations Research at Africa Business School (UM6P) and Director of the SOLA center. Holding a PhD from Purdue University, he has led numerous industry-facing projects bridging advanced analytics with large-scale supply-chain challenges, and has published widely in top OR journals.

He will coordinate the supervisory team and ensure each doctoral candidate benefits from the project’s industrial partnerships, data access and international network.

The call is open until positions are filled; early applications are encouraged.