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Isabella Sanders

Isabella Sanders

Assistant Professor at United States Military Academy

Isabella Sanders is an Assistant Professor at the United States Military Academy in the Systems Engineering Department and Associate Director of the Systems Design and Analysis Center. Her research focuses on creating supply chain innovations using methodologies from Operations Research, GIS, and Strategic Management. Within the public sector, Isabella works on predictive maintenance modeling, as well as supply chain risk assessment and analysis of U.S. government contractors. She also studies local food supply chains, building optimization models for market expansion and hub location & routing.

She was the recipient of the Food Research Distribution Society’s Outstanding Graduate Research Award, the AASHTO GIS-T Student Paper Award, the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Outstanding Collegiate Member Award, and the Byron Hanke Fellowship. She has served in society level leadership positions in SWE & IISE. She did her graduate education at Georgia Tech receiving a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering, an MBA, an M.S. in Operations Research and an M.S. in Geographic Information Sciences & Technology. She did her undergraduate studies at MIT and received an S.B. in Mathematics with minors in Ancient & Medieval Studies and Management Science.

Associate

Professional

Track: Analytics in the Public Sector

Hybrid Supplier Risk Assessment and Identification Methodology for Government Purchasers

Annually, different divisions within the Government must analyze their needs and decide whether to renew existing contracts or sign new contracts with government suppliers and contractors. There are multiple risks in entering these agreements, such as potential contractor delays, shutdowns or even bankruptcy. This paper aims to present a data-driven supplier risk identification and assessment framework that rigorously examines the stability of such potential firms and their respective plants, with a focus on financial risk factors. This hybrid procedure combines a logit model with a multi-criteria scoring procedure built using the DELPHI method. The methodology calculates individual plant-level supplier risk indices which can be used to aid the U.S. Government in choosing more stable suppliers and contractors.