About

Candace A. Yano holds the NEC Distinguished Chair and is a Professor of Operations and Information Technology Management at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. She is also a Professor in UC Berkeley's Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (IEOR). Her primary research interests include production, inventory, and logistics management, as well as interdisciplinary problems involving manufacturing and marketing. She has served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Chair of the Faculty of the Haas School of Business from 2016 through June 2019, and has held various leadership positions including Chair of the IEOR Department at UC Berkeley from 1995 to 2001. Yano's academic background includes an AB in Economics, an MS in Operations Research, and both an MS and Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University. Her professional experience includes positions at Bell Telephone Laboratories and the University of Michigan prior to her tenure at Berkeley. She has held visiting and leadership roles at Purdue University and UC Berkeley, and her editorial contributions include being the Editor of the Focused issues on Scheduling and Logistics of IIE Transactions and a Department Editor for the Operations and Supply Chain Department of Management Science. Her distinguished career has been recognized with awards such as the Kimball Medal from INFORMS and fellowships from INFORMS and IISE.

Research topics

• Information Retrieval
• Computer Science
• Mathematics
• Statistics
• World Wide Web

Selected publications

• A Model to Determine Optimal Numbers of Monograph Copies for Preservation in Shared Print Collections

  College & Research Libraries · 2023 · 1 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Information Retrieval
  • Computer Science

  In this study we developed a model and a spreadsheet tool for calculating, based on user input informed by available data, the probability of at least one usable copy of a monograph title surviving at various time horizons in shared print collections. The calculation incorporates four risk factors, which were assigned values based on research in the literature and our own studies. We applied the model to sample selected time horizons and risk tolerances, which suggests a minimum number of copies of a title needed for retention.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Optimizing Store‐Brand Quality: Impact of Choice of Producer and Channel Price Leadership

  Production and Operations Management · 2019-07-20 · 103 citations

  articleCorresponding

  There is a vast literature on optimizing store brand quality, but it does not address the individual and joint effects of sourcing and pricing power; this is the focus of our paper. We study a retailer’s store‐brand quality‐positioning problem under three sourcing structures and two types of price leadership. The three sources are in‐house (IH), a leading national‐brand manufacturer (NBM) with a competing product, and a strategic third‐party manufacturer (3M). We consider two forms of price leadership, Manufacturer‐Stackelberg (MS) and Retailer‐Stackelberg (RS). We fully characterize the retailer’s optimal quality levels and their relative values across the six scenarios, as well as equilibrium prices, retail profits, consumer welfare, and supply chain profits. Among other things, we find that the retailer chooses lower quality when sourcing from NBM than from other sources to benefit from quality differentiation as there are few other points of leverage. On the other hand, she chooses a higher quality when sourcing from 3M vs. producing IH because, despite the double marginalization, a higher‐quality store brand induces greater competition between 3M and NBM, which benefits the retailer. We also show that the power to decide the source is more important to the retailer than having pricing power.

  PublisherDOI

• Candace "Candi" Yano

  Authors group · 2019-08-13

  dataset1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Selecting support pillars in underground mines with ore veins

  IISE Transactions · 2019-12-03 · 4 citations

  articleSenior author

  We address the design optimization problem for a mine in which the ore is concentrated in a system of long, thin veins and for which the so-called top-down open-stope mining method is customarily used. In such a mine, a large volume of earth below the surface is envisioned for extraction and is conceptually divided into three-dimensional rectangular blocks on each of several layers. The mine design specifies which blocks are left behind as part of a pillar to provide geotechnical structural stability; the remainder are extracted and processed to obtain ore. We seek a design that maximizes profit subject to geotechnical stability constraints, which we represent as a set partitioning problem with side constraints. Due to the complex geotechnical considerations, a formulation that guarantees feasibility would require exponentially large numbers of variables and constraints. We devise a method to limit the number of variables that need to be included and develop a heuristic in which violated constraints are iteratively incorporated into the formulation, thereby eliminating the vast majority of voids (openings in the mine) that would cause instability. A final evaluation of geotechnical stability via finite element analysis is necessary, but we have found that systematic inclusion of relatively simple constraints is adequate for the mine design to pass this evaluation. In a case study based on real data, our approach provided a mine design that satisfied the finite element analysis standards, with an estimated profit 16% higher than that of the best solution identified by the company’s mining engineers, leading to tens of millions of dollars in profit enhancement.

  PublisherDOI

• Outsourcing in place: Should a retailer sell its store-brand factory?

  Figshare · 2017-01-01

  datasetOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Several major grocery chains in the United States own factories that produce some of their store-brand products. Historically, these store-brand products have been the low-price, lower-quality alternatives to higher-priced national brands, but the quality and consumer acceptance of store brands have increased markedly in recent years. Although demand for store-brand products has grown, managing the associated factories can be costly for retailers, leading some to consider selling the factories to third parties. We study the impact of selling a retailer’s existing capacity-limited factory to a third party when a store-brand product competes with a similar national-brand product. We examine the equilibrium dynamics between two external suppliers and show how the outcome changes with respect to prices, capacity limitations, the distribution of profits, and the sequencing of pricing decisions. Among other things, we show that, surprisingly, the national brand’s equilibrium wholesale price may fall when the factory is sold. We also show that the retailer may be strictly better off if he sells the factory, with these benefits being above and beyond any savings in fixed ownership and operating costs. Taken together, these results imply that when the store-brand factory has tight capacity, the adverse effects due to double marginalization on the store-brand product from selling the factory to a third party may be partially or fully offset by a reduction in the national brand’s wholesale price.

  PublisherDOI

• Outsourcing in place: Should a retailer sell its store-brand factory?

  IISE Transactions · 2017-01-13 · 14 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Several major grocery chains in the United States own factories that produce some of their store-brand products. Historically, these store-brand products have been the low-price, lower-quality alternatives to higher-priced national brands, but the quality and consumer acceptance of store brands have increased markedly in recent years. Although demand for store-brand products has grown, managing the associated factories can be costly for retailers, leading some to consider selling the factories to third parties.We study the impact of selling a retailer’s existing capacity-limited factory to a third party when a store-brand product competes with a similar national-brand product. We examine the equilibrium dynamics between two external suppliers and show how the outcome changes with respect to prices, capacity limitations, the distribution of profits, and the sequencing of pricing decisions. Among other things, we show that, surprisingly, the national brand’s equilibrium wholesale price may fall when the factory is sold. We also show that the retailer may be strictly better off if he sells the factory, with these benefits being above and beyond any savings in fixed ownership and operating costs. Taken together, these results imply that when the store-brand factory has tight capacity, the adverse effects due to double marginalization on the store-brand product from selling the factory to a third party may be partially or fully offset by a reduction in the national brand’s wholesale price.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Mine Planning Above and Below Ground: Generating a Set of Pareto-Optimal Schedules Considering Risk and Return

  International series in management science/operations research/International series in operations research & management science · 2013-12-02

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Scheduling of Multi‐skilled Staff Across Multiple Locations

  Production and Operations Management · 2013-11-13 · 34 citations

  articleSenior author

  We address the problem of assigning airline customer service agents (CSAs) to tasks related to departing flights, such as selling tickets and collecting boarding cards, at an international terminal of a large airport. The airline specifies minimum and target levels of staff and required (or desired) types and levels of skills for each location in each time period. The assignment problem is complicated by staff heterogeneity, time required for moves between locations, and lunch and rest‐break requirements. We present a mixed‐integer formulation that considers both staffing shortages and skills mismatches and show that the problem is NP‐hard. We derive valid inequalities that tighten the bounds within a branch‐and‐cut procedure, enabling us to obtain near‐optimal solutions for problems of realistic size very quickly. We also present a generalization to simultaneously optimize shift starting times and task assignments, which can aid in longer term workforce planning. Finally, we utilize our procedure to obtain managerial insights regarding the benefits of flexibility derived from more highly skilled staff, allowing more frequent moves, and choices of shift starting times. We also demonstrate the benefits of our procedure vs. a heuristic that mimics what an experienced scheduler might choose.

  PublisherDOI

• Mining above and below ground: timing the transition

  IIE Transactions · 2012-09-10 · 32 citations

  article

  Some mining operations eventually transition underground because surface mining becomes increasingly expensive as one progresses downward. Mining firms often delay this transition because large underground infrastructure costs are incurred up front, whereas underground extraction may occur over decades. When and how deep to install the underground infrastructure, as well as extraction schedules above and below ground, are decisions with a sizable impact on profits. This article addresses these questions while considering realistic factors, including choices of cutoff grades (minimum ore concentration at which the extracted material is processed to recover ore) and mining rates. We present a large longest-path representation of the problem and show that it can be solved via a series of small longest-path problems. The latter representation is not a decomposition of the original network but takes advantage of the structure of the problem. Together, the small networks require only a few seconds to solve. We illustrate our approach using data from a South African mine and provide insights regarding the effects of ore prices, discount rates, and their interactions on the characteristics of optimal solutions; we find that common wisdom is not always applicable. Our solutions have significantly higher profits than benchmark solutions, representing up to billions of dollars.

  PublisherDOI

• A Research Agenda for Models to Plan and Schedule Manufacturing Systems

  Deep Blue (University of Michigan) · 2011-09-14 · 16 citations

  bookOpen accessSenior author

  May 1985.

  Publisher

Frequent coauthors

• H. S. Levenson

  49 shared

• Jacob Nadal

  49 shared

• Ian Bogus

  49 shared

• Shannon Zachary

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  49 shared

• Mary Jane Miller

  49 shared

• Fern Brody

  49 shared

• Sara Amato

  49 shared

• Alexandra M. Newman

  Colorado School of Mines

  5 shared

Awards & honors

• Kimball Medal (highest award for service) INFORMS 2018
• INFORMS Fellow
• Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) Fellow
• Award for Advancement of Women in OR/MS Women in OR/MS Forum…
• IEOR Professor of the Year Award (teaching excellence award)…