Global Healthcare Supply Chains and Good Job News

I have been writing in this blog about our latest research on supply chain network design for critical needs products from vaccines to medicines and on hospital supply chains.

I was delighted to read in the Boston Globe that Sanofi-Aventis, one of the world's largest drug makers, is expanding its operations in Massachusetts and that this will mean more jobs -- jobs of importance and meaning.

According to the article: Sanofi-Aventis SA, is planning a $65 million expansion in Cambridge that will create about 300 jobs, making it the latest foreign pharmaceutical giant to invest in Massachusetts. The Paris-based drug maker is in the process of leasing space in Cambridgeport, where it will establish a joint headquarters for a new cancer division.

As you may recall (what a feeling of deja vu) last summer, at this time, the world was battling the H1N1 virus from Argentina (coincidentally, my most recent international trip in the summer of 2010) to China to the United States.

Sanofi-Aventis was one of only a handful of H1N1 vaccine producers and, given the low number of vaccine manufacturers, and the various challenges with the production of this vaccine, my research group began a study on multiproduct supply chain network design with applications to healthcare. Clearly, with fixed capacities, some of the vaccine producers had to switch from production of the annual flu vaccine to the challenging H1N1 vaccine.

We are pleased that the study has resulted in a paper/report, "Multiproduct Supply Chain Network Design with Applications to Healthcare," which, given the timeliness of the topic, we are making available to our readers through the Virtual Center for Supernetworks. The research allows pharmaceutical firms to redesign their supply chains in an optimal way to enable the cost-minimizing production of multiple vaccines and medicines with demand satisfaction.

Research at Business Schools is increasingly focusing not only on how wealth can be created but also how it can be done in a socially responsible way.

Students Sharing Their Good Job News

Yesterday, a student came to my office who will be graduating next month with a concentration in Operations Management. He wanted to tell me personally his good news (rather than just sending me an email). He had received two excellent job offers recently and had made his decision. When he told me that he will be working for a company located in the Prudential Center in Boston, I was thrilled. He was so excited about accepting this offer (and told me that he had a 30 minute time window in which to notify both companies that had extended him offers, which had been stressful). He decided to go with a privately held company, which may be more risky. His father, who is a postal worker, had told him that he regretted taking the more conservative professional route in his life and wanted his son to avail himself of exciting opportunities. My former student will have full health and dental benefits as well as partial payment towards additional academic coursework. Plus, what a location to be working in -- right in downtown, gorgeous Boston!

It was wonderful to share in this student's happiness. I look forward to meeting his parents at next month's UMass Amherst graduation. This time of the year with graduations is truly special and marks wonderful milestones in our students' (and their families) lives.

Also, another student (this one a doctoral student, whose dissertation advisor was a colleague of mine, who died this past December) wanted to share her good news with me. She received a tenure track Assistant Professorship offer from a university in the South and has accepted it. Her doctoral concentration is in Management Science and she will be teaching quantitative methods at the university's business school. She said: I feel extremely lucky as well as grateful for the training I received from our doctoral program. I want to personally thank you, for being such a good teacher and inspiring professor. I hope in the years to follow, I can represent our school and our program well.

It is very gratifying to have students excel both in the classroom and on the job market and to have them take the time to acknowledge their professor. Students that have the work ethic (and wonderful manners) will do well. I am very proud of them.