Dr Hugh Ratliff

Dr. Hugh Donald Ratliff

Executive Director – Georgia Tech Panama Logistics Innovation and Research Center
Partner – Supply Chain Ventures, LLC

Dr. Ratliff is a supply chain and logistics expert with more than 40 years of experience as an educator, researcher, consultant, and technology business executive.  As Founding Executive Director of the Georgia Tech Supply Chain & Logistics Institute and UPS Professor, he provided leadership for the largest research program in the world devoted to the study of supply chains and logistics.  This includes research and innovation centers in Panama and Singapore.  As founder and President of the software company CAPS Logistics, Dr. Ratliff helped to pioneer the development of software tools to improve performance of supply chain networks and optimize logistics processes.  He is also co-founder of Scientific Logistics, Inc. a pioneer in the development of cloud-based optimization methodology to plan delivery routes.  He has worked with a wide range of companies and government organizations to recognize and evaluate opportunities for supply chain design and logistics optimization, to develop strategies for exploiting these opportunities, and to develop the processes and technologies necessary to execute on these strategies.  Dr. Ratliff’s research into new logistics concepts and optimization algorithms has resulted in the publication of more than one hundred refereed journal articles and articles in popular trade magazines.  He has given more than two hundred invited presentations at national and international meetings.

Dr. Ratliff is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the Johns Hopkins University.  He has held a number of editorial positions including being Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Operations Research.  He served as Chair of the World Economic Forum Council on the Future of Supply Chains and Logistics. He was awarded the “Outstanding Research Award” of the Institute of Industrial Engineers for his work in logistics and is a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial Engineers and a Fellow of INFORMS.  Dr. Ratliff was elected to the National Academy of Engineering for his work in developing network optimization methodology for use in the design and operation of logistics systems.  More than 200 companies and government agencies including Coca Cola and the United States Post Office have implemented concepts developed by him. His current research is primarily focused is on two areas (1) Latin American supply chains and (2) technology and management processes for improving performance of last mile delivery systems.