IISE Logistics and Supply Chain (LSC) Division Student Case Competition

The Logistics and Supply Chain (LSC) Division of IISE invites nominations for its annual Student Case Competition. Any team with three to five student members can participate in the competition to showcase their problem-solving capability and analytical skills on a related LSC case. The winning teams in each category of the competition will be recognized at the LSC Town Hall Meeting to be held at the upcoming IISE Annual Conference & Expo, Arlington, TX, May 16 – 19, 2026.

In each category, first-place winners will receive $250, second-place winners will receive $150, and third-place winners will receive $100.

Eligibility Requirements

  • Teams must consist of three to five members for undergraduate student teams; and two or three members for graduate student teams. Teams of up to five members with a mix of undergraduate and no more than three graduate students are allowed, and they will participate in the graduate category.
  • All team members must be IISE and LSC division members.
  • Team members should be from the same institution (but can be enrolled in different disciplines).
  • There is no limit on the number of teams competing from the same institution.
  • The teams must demonstrate innovative use of logistics and supply chain concepts in the analysis of the case.
  • IISE LSC student board members and faculty advisors who are directors or officers serving on the IISE LSC board during submission are ineligible.

The teams can be nominated by a faculty advisor or self-nominated. The following documents will be required from each participating team:

  • One-page contact information, including names, email addresses, university name, and department information for all members of the team, highlighting the contact person for the team. Also, indicate if the team is formed by undergraduate or graduate students.
  • A 4-page “memo” describing the analysis, procedure, and results for the case.

Case Information

Teams will work on the case “Growing Pains: A Case Study for Large-Scale Vehicle Routing,” available at https://doi.org/10.1287/ited.2016.0167cs from the INFORMS Transactions on Education Journal. The goal of the case is to prepare an internal estimate of annual freight transportation miles if the current delivery day schedule is maintained and all stores are restocked from a single DC in Wilmington.

The Data files can be accessed via the links below:

Important Dates (Deadlines)

The application is due February 20, 2026, by 11:59 PM Pacific Time. All application documents must be emailed as a single PDF file to iiselscawards@gmail.com and to the attention of the LSC Division Awards Co-Directors by the team contact person for full consideration. There is no application fee.

For any questions, please contact the LSC Division Award Co-Directors:

Recognition

  • First Place: $250
  • Second Place: $150
  • Third Place: $100
  • Recognition at the LSC Town Hall Meeting at Annual Conference
  • Certificate provided by IISE (either mailed or given at the town hall meeting) for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize winners.
  • Recognition in ISE magazine
  • Recognition on LSC webpage and in the newsletter

Committee Chairs

Conflict of Interest Policy

Societies and divisions must follow standard conflict of interest guidelines. Those guidelines include, but are not limited to:

  • Officers and Board members of the Division should be ineligible for awards during the period of their service, without approval by the Senior VP for Technical Operations (SVP). Exceptions may only be made by the SVP when awards are time sensitive, and the impacted board member(s) or officer(s) must recuse themselves from the award process. For awards that are not time-sensitive, the nominee should wait until their Officer or Board service is complete to be nominated.
  • The awards committee (or judging committee) should not include members who have either a personal or professional relationship with the nominees. For example, a faculty member should not be judging a paper competition where a participant from the same university is a nominee for best paper award.
  • The awards committee (or judging committee) should actively change its membership on a rotating basis from year to year to ensure fairness, equity, and diversity. That is, some members of the judging committee should roll off the committee and new members should roll on.

2025 Winners

Graduate Level

1st Place:
Erwin Diallo and Andrew Swift and Farzaneh Ashouri
Dalhousie University, Sexton Campus

2nd Place:
Md Asif Khan Sharon, Shantonu Mitra and Polash Kumar Guptho
University of Arkansas

3rd Place:
Weiliang Deng, Jiazheng Ling and Minhang Zhou
University of Arizona

Past Winners

Logistics and Supply Chain Division Page

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