Research in the Supply Chain Management Group

The central research area in the group is decision support for companies with regard to the circular economy. In addition to exploring established concepts such as remanufacturing, refurbishment or recycling, the main focus is on repair, which is a low-threshold strategy for extending product use. Research questions include supply-side network structures, the influence of incentive systems, the operational planning of service technicians and the availability of spare parts, but also demand-side drivers and barriers for repair. In addition to analytical models, simulation and also empirical approaches are used to meet the requirements of the respective issues under consideration.

The second research pillar in the group focuses on matheuristic approaches to optimize specific variants of the travelling salesperson, assignment, and location problems. Our research is published in the leading journals of the field, such as European Journal of Operational Research or Decision Sciences, and we are also very active in serving the research community. On the one hand, this manifests itself by leading working groups within the Austrian Society for Operations Research, but also the European umbrella organization EURO. On the other hand, we co-organize and host workshops and continuously referee papers for various journals.