Advanced Seminar Operations & Supply Chain Management: Logistics and Supply Chain Management

The advanced seminar in logistics and supply chain management focuses on recent research progress on varying topics, e.g. supply chain performance measurement, metamodelling and metaheuristics (see below for example). - Metamodelling identifies strategic cost relationships between logistics performance measures and aggregate problem parameters. Thereby, empirical research methods (such as regression models) are combined with mathematical optimization and simulation models (such as mixed- integer programming or discrete event simulation) to identify best practice relationships. Several topics with applications in transportation, inventory management and procurement are available. - Supply chain design under uncertainty often involves combinatorial optimization problems. The combination of scenario-based modelling and the combinatorial nature of the problem suggest the application of modern heuristic optimization concepts. Several topics on different applications and search methods are available.

The objective of the module is to equip the participants with the necessary skill and tools for a successful master thesis project. Specifically, the aim is to be able to: - Read and understand recent research contributions - Pursue interesting research questions - Conduct a literature study and/or numerical study and/or implementation - Structure and organize research methods and results - Write a seminar paper - Present research findings and defend them in a discussion

The examination consists of a written seminar paper including implemented optimization or simulation models (75%), an oral presentation (20%) and a discussion (5%). The seminar paper to be submitted one week prior to the presentation should cover 15-20 pages and is to be written in the style of current publications of peer-reviewed journal articles, including an introduction, a literature review, a description of the model and algorithms, numerical results and conclusions to show the competencies to clearly describe a research problems, the ability to conduct a literature view, to structure the material and demonstrate technical writing, design an experiment and describe and visualize the results, and show the ability to critically discuss the results. At the end of the module, students present their work in a 30 minutes presentation to the chair members and other seminar participants to show the ability to design and deliver a research presentation using different available media and visualization tools and defend the results in a critical group discussion. In the discussion part, every student has to read and summarize the paper and presentation of one other participant to demonstrate the ability to summarize and moderate a research discussion with all other seminar participants.

One module in the field of Operations & Supply Chain Management and the MOS course.

In an introductory session, the current theme of the module is explained by the lecturer and the various available seminar topics are elaborated in detail. Also information on relevant literature for the problem settings is introduced, wich forms the basis of the students' seminar papers. After the introductory session, students will work out the topic on their own, by using their abbilities of conducting literature research, mathematical modelling, programming and analyses. Throughout the whole time, they receive guidance from a supervisor of the chair. Different milestones are to be achieved at specific dates, such as a preliminary outline of the seminar paper, first research results and the final paper. Following the submission of the final paper, presentations and discussions of all students' seminar papers are conducted, usually spanning one or several days, where amongst others also presentation, moderation and discussion skills are trained.