Oradores plenários/Plenary speakers Oradores plenários/Plenary speakers

 

Ana Paula Barbosa Póvoa

Instituto Superior Tecnico,
Universidade de Lisboa

Optimising Sustainable Supply Chain

 

Ruth Kaufman FORS 

The OR Society
 

OR Pro Bono: The UK experience

Ricardo Viana Vargas

Executive Director
Brightline Initiative

Leading Projects in Turbulent Times

 


 

 

Ana Paula Barbosa Póvoa
 

Ana Barbosa-Póvoa is a Full Professor of Operations and Logistics at the Department of Management and Engineering of Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), University of Lisbon, She holds a PhD from Imperial College of Science Tecnology and Medicine. Her research interests are on the areas of Operations and Supply Chain Management where she has been exploring the optimization of global systems accounting for economic, environmental and social concerns. Ana has published widely in these areas and supervised several Master and PhD students. She has been coordinating several scientific projects some of them in close collaboration with industry.

 

Optimising Sustainable Supply Chain

Supply chain are complex systems involving a set of entities located around the world and whose main objective is the supply of products to the final consumers at a minimum cost. The management of such systems is complex due to the large multiplicity of materials and information involved and the varied characteristics of the associated entities. In any organization supply chain play a crucial role as they dictate the availability of the products to the final consumer and consequently the financial success of the involved companies. Consequently, supply chain ought to be flexible, resilient and efficient while guaranteeing costumers demands at minimum costs. Additionally, as supply chains are often associated with a high level of natural resources consumption and may be linked to high environment and societal burdens a special care should be devoted to sustainability concerns when designing, planning and operating such systems. The emergence of the sustainable supply chain area is nowadays a reality in both academic and industry communities where several challenges are still to be resolved. To help answering some of these challenges the usage of operations research methods is as a path to follow as they allow the support of supply chain decisions while accounting for sustainability concerns.
In this talk we explore the use of operations research methods, more precisely optimisation, to address the design, planning and operation of supply chain towards the management of sustainable supply chain.

 


 

 

Ruth Kaufman FORS

Ruth Kaufman, a ‘Companion' of the OR Society, became President of the Society in January 2016.  Like many other members of the OR Society, she fell into O.R. by accident, in her case having taken a maths BA in the School of Social Sciences at Sussex University.  This led to a long career in public sector O.R. and wider management at London Transport, London Electricity, Department of Health and Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD).  At ECGD, she joined the Executive Board, having responsibility for strategy and change management as well as leading an influential OR group. In the voluntary sector, Ruth chaired a small charity, Woman's Trust, for five years and was a founder member of the OR Society's Pro Bono Scheme. Ruth is currently (amongst other things), Advisor to the Finance Committee at the National Federation of Women's Institutes, a visiting Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics and a freelance consultant and advisor. She was awarded an OBE for 'services to Operational Research' in the 2016 New Year's Honours list.

 

OR Pro Bono: The UK experience

It is likely that for as long as O.R. has existed, O.R. people have given their time and skills freely, to friends, individuals, organisations or causes that they want to help. Several years ago, the UK's O.R. Society decided to formalise and expand this, by setting up a "Pro Bono O.R." scheme supported and funded by the OR Society. Since its beginnings in 2010, the scheme has gradually grown: in 2016, non-profit organisations received an estimated 160 person-days from 60 O.R. volunteers, and 38 new projects were initiated.  In this talk Ruth Kaufman, who was one of the founder members of the scheme and is currently President of the OR Society, will talk about the UK experience, including: the history of the UK scheme and how it works,  what sort of projects have been undertaken under the banner of Pro Bono O.R., the advantages and opportunities of such a scheme, and the risks, issues and challenges that it raises.

 


 

 

Ricardo Viana Vargas

See a short bio here.
 

Leading Projects in Turbulent Times

Using real life examples, Ricardo will talk about the challenges faced in projects globally due to the unstable environment and increasing volatility. He will share his leadership experience in handling project in the most complex environments worldwide.