ELA's 16th annual doctoral workshop took place on June 29th- July 2nd 2011, in Schindellegi, Switzerland. It was sponsored by the Kuhne Foundation and hosted in the Kuhne + Nagel’s facilities.

Nineteen PhD students from Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the U.K. were selected and participated in this year’s workshop. Prof. PatrikJonsson was the chairman. Professors Rob Zuidwijk, Chee Wong and WłodzimerzRydzkowski participated as moderators and prof. Nathalie Fabbe-Coste had a keynote speech on ‘methodological considerations in logistics research’. Dr. Rod Franklin was dinner speaker of the Thursday evening gala-dinner at Restaurant Luegeten. Prof. Hans Christian Pfohl, Chairman of the ELA Research & Development Committee, had aclosing speech and handed over the workshop certificates during social event on Friday afternoon. The managing director of Kuhne Foundation, Martin Willhaus, was a very appreciated host who participated during the entire workshop.

All PhD students presented work-in-progress papers and opposed on other students’ papers. A wide spread of logistics topics were presented and discussed. Some common topics were sustainable supply chains, supply chain integration, supply chain relationships and risks, and warehousing. There was also a wide spread of methodological approaches. There were studies based on single and multiple case studies, survey studies, modeling, simulation and optimization. In addition to presenting and discussing the PhD students’ own work, there were break-out sessions and discussions about similarities and differences between PhD programmes in Europe, and about publishing in logistics journals. There were also invited speeches about research methodologies and research relevance. An important aim of this event is to let PhD students meet with students from other European logistics environments and to meet and discuss with some professors in the field. It is consequently to network and have fun.

The 17thELA-Doctorate Workshop will be sponsored again by the Kuehne-Foundation. It will be organized at Schindellegi (CH) June 27th – June 29th 2012.

Some words from the participants of the previous workshop:

“The location and accommodation were excellent, Kuhne and Nagel, particularly Martin Willhaus was an excellent host. We were all made to feel very special and it was fantastic when Mr. Willhaus took us to that beautiful restaurant overlooking Lake Zurich. The feedback from the European professors moderating the conference was great and illuminating for all students presenting. I found the conference gave me a lot of ideas on how I will shape my research and it has really motivated me. The conference was well organised with good planning and execution. The conference had a really good selection of students with different research topics. I also really liked the guest speaker Prof Nathalie, she did a really good presentation which I found invaluable” (Sarah Shaw, Heriot-Watt University)

“I think this is a very cozy workshop. Not too many participants, but covered quite a broad and comprehensive research area in the supply chain field. Sometimes when we focus on our own research and meet people from the same discipline, our view can be quite narrowed. In this workshop, I got to know other types of research, different research approaches, etc. all with the same domain of supply chain.”(Xiaoyun Bing (University of Wagenigen)

“The conference provided us a chance to practice criticism, see what other PhD students are doing and present our work in a relaxing and friendly environment.”(SuntichaiKotcharin University of Manchester)

“The Kühne foundation was a a very generous host, and especially Martin Willhaus took great care of us.” (UniMartinsen, Linköping University)

“The presentations and discussions were energised and the direction given was extremely useful. The entertainment was nicely balanced, and the professors engaging.”(Philip Greening, University of Cranfield)

“I did really enjoy ELA. It was a great platform for new researchers to get to know each other across Europe. I made friends afterward. Secondly, the size of the group was really good.”(Linda Xu, University of Plymouth)

“Networking with so many students from various countries and universities was truly a great experience.”(Rui Wang, Technical University of Munich)

The ELA doctoral workshop took place in the PASCA Centre (Centre of Purchasing And Supply Chain Atlantic) in mid-June. Enjoying the western climate, professors and students spent two days in sesssions presenting papers and discussing research and methodology.

For the 15th year, students from laboratories across Europe submitted abstracts of their theses (subject, research, directions, methodology). The ELA coommittee met in March to select the 18 best papers.

During two full days, 18 students presented their work: more than a simple presentation, the ELA doctorate workshop is one of the important opportunities to progress on a thesis. Each participant can exchange with other students who work on similar subjects. PhDs from prestigious universities can also encourage and redirect the project:

-up date on the information, articles, etc

-questions to clarify some aspects

-new directions for futurre esearch

-alternative methodologies

Moderators

Dr Allan Woodburn -University of Westminster, United Kingdom
Prof Dirk Cattryss -K.U. Leuven, Belgium
Prof Fabrizio Dallari -Università Carlo Cattaneo LIUC, Italy
Prof Patrik Jonsson – Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden
Prof Thierry Sauvage – Audencia Nantes School of
Management and CRET-LOG, France
Prof Pierre Dejax – Ecole des Mines de Nantes, France

Speakers

Prof Hans-Christian Pfohl – Darmstadt University, Germany

Prof Jacob Wijngaard – University of Groningen, Netherlands

Students
ALSABT Abdulmonem – University of Hull, United Kingdom
BIERBOOMS Remco – Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands
BJELIC Nenad – University of Belgrade, Serbia
BOSCHIAN Valentina – Università degli Studi di Trieste, Italy
COLICCHIA Claudia – Carlo Cattaneo University LIUC, Italy
DUBEDOUT Hugues – Ecole des Mines de Nantes, France
ENKE Anja – Berlin University of Technology, Germany GEVAERS Roel – University of Antwerp, Belgium
KARAMPERIDIS Stavros – Newcastle University, United Kingdom
KELLNER Florian – University of Regensburg, Germany
KUDLA Nicole – University of St Gallen, Switzerland
PAN Shenle – ENSMP Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris, France
RIJPKEMA Willem -Wageningen University, Netherlands
STOCKENBERGER Dominik – Technische Universität München, Germany
TISO Annamaria DVT -Politecnico di Bari, Italy
TRAN Minh Hoang – Audencia Nantes School of Management, France
VEGA Diego – Unversité Aix-Marseille II, CRET-LOG, France
ZIEGLER Hans-Peter – Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), Germany

sponsored by

On Wednesday, the workshop started with a short Who-is-Who introduction followed by a joint dinner. After the dinner, Martin Willhaus gave a short presentation to introduce this year’s sponsor, the Kühne-Stiftung. Later, the opportunity for a public soccer viewing was offered by the Jungbauernschule.

Thursday morning, Martin Schneyder from the Jungbauernschule gave a welcome address to the participants. The scientific program started with the “Research proposal competition” used in previous workshops as a warm-up and team building exercise. The task for the students was

“Assume that you can apply for a 1 million euro grant to carry out a research project concerned with logistics. Please formulate a proposal for the research study. The proposal must take into account behavioural, structural (intra and the inter-organisational) and technological aspects as well as identifying consequences for public policy makers, business and the scientific community.”

The topics chosen by the three groups were:

• Commuter Service for the City of Hamburg
• Green-Logistics – The impact of Consumer Behavior
• Green City Logistics

On Thursday, 7 student-presentations and the Simulation tutorial by Alexander Verbraeck were delivered. Only the first scheduled presentation by Alexander Bode had to be cancelled because of last minute sickness. The format to have a tutorial on one of the core research methodologies in Logistics Research was well appreciated by the students and should be maintained in the future. Thursday evening, the Jungbauernschule offered the dinner as a barbeque which was excellent.

On Friday, 11 student-presentations were given. After the lunch-break, the participants were offered a guided walking tour in Grainau by Martin Schneyder. The evening dinner took place in the Restaurant Höhenrain in Grainau. The Chairman of the ELA Research and Development Committee, Hans Christian Pfohl handed out the participation certificates. The format to have a joint dinner and certificate award at Friday evening with the purpose to minimize the number of early departures has been quite successful as only one student left prior to the dinner and the majority of the students stayed until Saturday.

The overall quality of the student-presentations was as expected from the proposals. In hindsight, two of the weaker proposals should not have been accepted. The cooperation with the Jungbauernschule was excellent.

Participants of the ELA Doctorate Workshop 2007

ELA Annual Doctorate Workshop (2007

Download Programme 2007

The Twelfth Annual ELA Doctorate Workshop took place between Wednesday 27th to Friday 29th of June 2007 in Jungbauernschule at Grainau in Germany. This is an excellent location, very close to Germany’s highest mountain and to the border with Austria. It was the second time that the event was held at this location and the main sponsor was again DHL solutions.

The selection of PhD students was decided during a meeting of the ELA Research & Development Committee. The Committee members assessed the research proposals submitted in a form of a 3-page abstract. Four academics with a research interest in logistics and supply chain acted as moderators during the event. The event was chaired and organised by Dr Michael Bourlakis (Brunel University Business School, UK) and the other three moderators were Prof. Dr. Michael Essig (Bundeswehr University, Germany), Dr. Tom Van Woensel (Technische Universiteit, Netherlands) and Dr Allan Woodburn (Westminster University, UK).

At the beginning of the Workshop on Wednesday afternoon, a welcome introduction and reception was organised that was supported financially by Taylor & Francis Publishers. The students, who were representing eleven different countries (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, UK) had the chance to get to know each other and to meet the moderators.

On Thursday morning, students formed groups with the aim of working on a research funding proposal in relation to European logistics. They considered a range of aspects and their impact on European public policy makers, businesses, scientist and other stakeholders. Moderators commented on these proposals and provided constructive feedback whilst the rest of the day was allocated for students’ presentations.

In total, eighteen students made presentations during the Workshop analysing a diverse range of topics on logistics and supply chain management issues such as, inter alia, humanitarian supply chains, packaging and logistics, maritime logistics, operational analysis of product deliveries and intermodal transportation. These presentations were chaired by the moderators who also provided relevant feedback at the end.

At the Workshop, we were also delighted to receive a keynote address by Prof. Dr. Hans-Christian Pfohl, the Chairman of the ELA Research and Development Committee, who welcomed the students and analysed contemporary issues in European logistics. During another session, Prof. Dr. Jan Dul (RSM Erasmus University, The Netherlands) shed extra light on the Case Study Methodology.

The next ELA Doctorate Workshop will run in 2008 and will allow again PhD students to meet to discuss logistics issues from various European universities.

Dr Michael Bourlakis

Brunel University Business School