Abstract:
Supply Chains are complex systems that involve challenging problems. Such problems require suitable answers so as to guarantee efficiency and responsiveness improvements of the involved systems. When answering to such problems optimization is a possible path to follow aiming at building tools that can help the decision makers on the problems solutions that span from strategic to operational levels. The scientific community has been exploring this pathway but much more is required, especially due to the outer shell of new emerging problems. The present talk characterizes supply chain decisions and presents some of the work that has been done on the optimization of supply chains detailing specially the work developed by the Operations and Logistics Group of the Centre for Management Studies at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) in Lisbon. We conclude with a discussion of the tendencies and future challenges in the area.
Bio:
Ana Barbosa-Póvoa obtained her PhD in Engineering from Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine. She is currently a Full Professor of Operations and Logistics at the Department of Management and Engineering of Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), University of Lisbon, Portugal where she is the director of the BSc and Master Programs in Engineering and Management. She is a member of the scientific council of IST and of the University Senate. She is also the Vice-president of the Portuguese Association for Operational Research. She has been acting as reviewer to several national and international research scientific boards on research projects. Her research interests are on the supply chain management, where both forward and reserve structures are included and on the design, planning and scheduling of flexible systems. Ana has published widely in these areas and supervised several Master and PhD students. Ana in 2008 has received the scientific award of Technical University of Lisbon in the scientific area of Industrial Management.