Supply Chain Network Theory and Operations Management

When I received an invitation to contribute to a PhD course being offered this term at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, I was intrigued.

The title of the course is: Theoretical Perspectives in Contemporary Business Administration Research.

Of course, I accepted, and look forward to being back soon as a Visiting Professor of Operations Management at the University of Gothenburg in the gorgeous city that has become my second home.

For the past three weeks or so, I have been reading a lot of material on theory in operations management and in supply chain management and selected the title: "Operations Management and Supply Chain Network Theory," for my contribution to the course.

I was also asked to prepare a reading list for the doctoral students, which I have done and which includes both a recent invited handbook chapter that I wrote on "Supply Chains and Transportation Networks" and a tutorial that I co-authored with Dr.  Qiang "Patrick" Qiang  that was published in the International Transactions in Operational Research, which has been been available for download for free.

In addition, in order to emphasize how the theory can be applied in practice, I will be using the article, A. Nagurney and M. Yu (2012),  ``Sustainable Fashion Supply Chain Management Under Oligopolistic Competition and Brand Differentiation," International Journal of Production Economics 135, Special Issue on  Green Manufacturing and Distribution in the Fashion and Apparel Industries, pp 532-540.

The syllabus for the course is now available.

What a wonderful way in which to begin my sabbatical -- by teaching on a topic that I care deeply about in a country that I love -- Sweden.

In my intensive lectures I will be giving the students an introduction to operations management, since they come with different backgrounds and represent different specialties.  I will overview networks of relevance to supply chains and will discuss supply chain network theory and applications, with our case study on sustainability and fashion, which is quite appropriate since I will be teaching in the land of H&M! I also plan on covering  other issues that have been explored using supply chain network theory from mergers and acquisitions to supply chain network performance and vulnerability analysis and even the role of supply chains in disaster relief.

Disaster Communications and Humanitarian Logistics

Last week, the students in my Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare course at the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst had a guest lecture on Disaster Communications.

I had told the students, before I left for Gothenburg, Sweden, that there would be a surprise guest lecturer on March 13, who would be speaking to them on Disaster Communications.

The surprise guest speaker was my husband, Professor Lad Nagurney, who is an expert on computer engineering and communications, among other topics related to hardware. He has also been a ham radio operator for many years.

Throughout the semester, the theme of communications, and the importance of communications in emergency preparedness and response has been resonating.

To-date, the class has heard from such experts as: Mr. Tom O'Regan, emergency preparedness and business continuity manager at UMass Amherst, Mr. Rick Lee of the Red Cross, and Lt. Col. James Sahady of the National Guard.

The presentation on Disaster Communications has now been posted. It discusses trade-offs among different modes of communications and their resilience (or lack thereof) in disasters, along with the Tampere Convention, which the US as well as Russia have yet to ratify.

During the Bellagio Center workshop, Humanitarian Logistics: Networks for Africa, that I organized, under the auspices of the Rockefeller Foundation, the participants had the privilege of hearing Dr. Cosmas Zavazava of the International Telecommunications Union speak on Bridging the Last mile gap through Telecommunications/ICT in Disaster Management. My husband had actually suggested Dr. Zavazava, since he was well-aware of his leadership in this area, and his presentation was outstanding. This workshop, which took place in May 2008 at Lake Como, Italy, was sandwiched between the cyclone that hit Myanmar/Burma and the Sichuan earthquake in China (obviously I had not planned the workshop this way).

Resilient communications assist in a more timely response and enable the flow of critical needs supplies to the victims at points of demand. They are also extremely important in recovery operations and in reestablishing connections among family members and in getting the news out.

Without communications, disaster relief operates in a complete vacuum.

Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare -- Teaching a New Course at the Isenberg School

I will be teaching a new Spring semester course, beginning in January 2012, entitled, Humanitarian Logistics and Healthcare.

The course will be offered in the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst and will be meeting Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:30AM-10:50AM.



The number for the course is SCH-MGMT 597LG and the course is an upper level undergraduate / graduate level course. Students should have a background in operations research / management science and, ideally have had a course similar to my Transportation & Logistics course, although I am being flexible in prerequisites, since this is the first time that this course is being offered.

I have already started preparing lectures for this new course and am very excited about being able to teach it.

We will be using primary sources, results from case studies, journal articles, videos, and there will be invited practitioners to discuss real-world experiences from the field.

The course will also be covering rigorous analytical models and performance metrics.

I became very interested in this topic of research and practice several years back and organized a workshop on the topic that was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation at that took place at its Bellagio Center on Lake Como in Italy.

The website for the conference along with the findings and many of the presentations by both practitioners and researchers can be accessed here.