Organization

Eindhoven University of Technology is one of the leading research universities In Europe. It is in particular well-known for its joint research with industry, frequently being ranked number one worldwide. The synergy between research and teaching is at the heart of its academic philosophy. The School of Industrial Engineering (IE) is one of the longest-established IE schools in Europe, with a strong presence in the international research, design, and education community, especially in the field of Operations Management and Operations Research. The Operations Planning, Accounting & Control (OPAC) group of the School of IE teaches and conducts research in the area of operations planning and control in manufacturing, services, logistics, and supply chains. Research is generally quantitative in nature, while many of the researchers also engage in empirical research. 

Description of the project

The last few decades have witnessed a complete globalization of supply chains, resulting in a typical Multi National Enterprise (MNE) having tens of thousands of suppliers in developing countries. Strong cost-based competition in developing countries led to tremendous social, environmental, and ethical problems at factories which supply goods and services to MNEs. In addition to the obvious human and environmental aspects associated with these problems, such issues can impact both the reputation and profits of global brands. To address this, the common practice by many MNEs is to conduct risk-based supplier sustainability audits (by themselves or through third-party experts) to verify that the supplier is conforming to the buyer's code of conduct. Nevertheless, some recent studies and the practical experience of our industry partners point out that audit results are far from reliable. Furthermore, audits are costly and time-consuming, causing an 'audit fatigue' at the suppliers. Consequently, more proactive actions are needed to make an impact on supply chain sustainability. The goals of this project -that the postdoctoral fellow will focus on- include 1) creating a predictive model addressing the sustainability performance of the suppliers, and 2) developing decision support for supplier selection and improvement, trading-off cost, service, lead-time, quality, and sustainability. To this end, the postdoctoral fellow will work with Dr. Tarkan Tan of the OPAC group and collaborate with Prof. Eva Demerouti of the Human Performance Management group. The industrial participants of the project include Philips, Fairphone, and ELEVATE.

Tasks

The postdoctoral fellow is expected to conduct top level research for 18 months and write research papers on the research project, in close collaboration with the project partners. The position also requires getting involved with some teaching activities of the OPAC group (a maximum of 10% of the time), including the supervision of MSc students that will work on subparts of this project.