Institutional Setting at TU/e

The position is embedded on the interface between the Operations, Planning, Accounting and Control (OPAC) and Innovation, Technology Entrepreneurship & Marketing (ITEM) groups. The groups are part of the School of Industrial Engineering (IE), which is one of the two schools of the TU/e Department of Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences (IE&IS). 

The focus of the School of IE is to perform excellent research and provide outstanding education in order to make business processes (i.e., operational and innovation processes) work in a high technology-driven environment. This mission is translated in the work of four groups: (1) Operations, Planning, Accounting and Control (OPAC); (2) Innovation, Technology Entrepreneurship & Marketing (ITEM); (3) Human Performance Management (HPM), and (4) Information Systems (IS), each paying attention to a particular area in the business processes and operational engineering domain.  The OPAC group deals with the smart control of operational processes. The ITEM group focuses on understanding and improving new business and product development processes. The human performance aspects in these processes are addressed by the HPM group while the design, optimization and computer-aided support of these operational and new business and product development processes are studied by the IS group. 

As stated above, the research within the OPAC group focuses on the smart control of operational processes. In these processes, scarce resources (e.g., machines, people, transportation means) are used to transform incoming materials into outgoing materials or to move materials from one place to another. With a smart control of operational processes, these activities can be done faster or one can do more work with the same or even fewer resources. To obtain such smart control, one has to address decisions at strategic, tactical, and operational level. The ITEM group focusses on understanding and improving new business and product development processes. This is done by combining a management and engineering perspective to capture the complexity and multidisciplinary nature of these processes. To help managers improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their business development and innovation management efforts the group exploits the various competences at the interface between management and engineering. 

Description of the position

The mission of the School IE is to conduct excellent scientific research and to provide excellent education in industrial engineering, both aiming at scientific knowledge creation and transfer, in order to make both operational and innovation processes work in a high technology-driven environment.  As such the School of IE does research at the forefront of new technologies and their impact on, amongst others, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and their upstream (i.e. suppliers) and downstream (i.e. customers) partners in the Brainport region. For these OEMs multiple trends are observed resulting from technological breakthroughs that significantly affect their business processes. First, capabilities further increase and some suppliers of OEMs get involved in the development of new machines. Second, customers of the OEMs ask for short delivery leadtimes when orders for new machines are placed, while the leadtime for the whole supply chain is long. Third, more and more machines are sold with full service contracts or machines are being leased instead of bought. In both cases, the OEM becomes responsible for keeping the machines up and running during the long periods that the machines are used by customers. These trends make the relations between the OEM and his suppliers more important. The traditional governance mechanisms do not work well in such environments and therefore it is relevant to study new governance mechanisms for supplier involvement in the operational and innovation processes of OEMs. The focus of the chair 'Supplier Collaboration and Contracting' will be on these governance mechanisms. 

Teaching

The OPAC and ITEM groups are responsible for a large number of courses in the TU/e Bachelor College as well as the Graduate School. The groups are particularly active in the undergraduate (bachelor) program in Industrial Engineering and graduate (i.e. master) programs Operations Management and Logistics (OML), Innovation Management (IM), and Manufacturing Systems Engineering (MSE), which attract top-level students from all over the world.  The full professor is expected to strengthen these programs by taking the lead in developing, coordinating and teaching courses on supplier collaboration and contracting. 

Valorization

This chair is endorsed by the NEVI Research Stichting, the research foundation of the Dutch purchasing society, which promotes the interaction between academia and the industry. The full professor is expected to perform research and teaching on supplier collaboration and contracting and to actively transfer this knowledge among OEM's and suppliers in the Brainport ecosystem and the NEVI community. 

Management

The full professor will contribute to the leadership of the OPAC and ITEM research programs. S/he will serve committees at group-, school-, and/or university level and help to strengthen the department's Strategic Themes and the university's Strategic Areas. The academic culture within the School of IE is characterized by collegial decision-making and collaboration at the group-, school- and university level. The management style of the full professor should reflect this. 

Tasks

Women in Science
TU/e strives towards a diversified workforce at all function levels. Part of this endeavor is to appoint more talented women to scientific positions. The Women in Science (WISE) network at TU/e is very actively promoting to share knowledge and experience which may further assist newly appointed female scientific staff in their further professional and personal development.