Last summer, the ELA research and development committee brought together 20 PhD students from 11 European countries for a workshop in Monchy-St-Eloi, near Paris. Hosted by AFTIFTM and sponsored by DHL Switzerland, the ninth ELA doctorate workshop was held over three days from 16-18 June.
The students were selected based on three-page abstracts of their research proposals submitted before the work shop, with a revision process for the selected abstracts. In addition to the students, five professors were present to moderate the papers and presentations: the organiser and chairperson for 17 June, Prof. Nathalie Fabbe-Costes (University of la Méditerranée – Aix-Marseille II), the chairperson for 18 June, Prof. Marie Koulikoff-Souviron (Ceram Sophia Antipolis, European School of Business), Prof. Britta Gammelgaard (Copenhagen Business School – CBS), Prof. Danuta Kisperska-Moron (University of Economics, Katowice) and Prof. Roelof Kuik, Erasmus University, the Netherlands.
The workshop started with a presentation from Prof. Britta Gammelgaard entitled ‘Schools in Logistics Research’, that give opportunity for a plenary discussion about methodological choices in logistics research.
It continued with a competitive element – a group assignment for the students. The topic was a research proposal for a major EU research grant taking into account behavioural, structural and technological aspects, as well as identifying consequences public policy makers, business and the scientific community. The students themselves judged the proposals and the moderators provided additional feedback and advice based on their own experiences of submitting and evaluating research proposals.
The workshop continued with presentations by nine of the doctorate students on:
- Reality, opportunities and risks of supply chain management projects: an organisational artefact in search of control
- Temporary logistics solutions
- The Package as an information resource in a logistics network
- Using the supply relationship to develop lean and green suppliers
- Towards collaborative logistics and transportation networks: a modelling approach network design
- Performance measurement in process chains of intermodal transport
- The potential of the environmental argument in the marketing of combined road-rail
Transport - Advances on job scheduling with time-dependent parameters: theory and industrial
applications - The environmental implications of grocery home delivery.
There were also, for the first time in the ELA Doctorate Workshop, ‘posters sessions’. Eleven posters were studied and discussed.
Selected student papers will be published by the ELA as ‘Proceedings of the ELA doctorate workshop 2004’ and will be available, along with those of previous workshops, from the ELA secretaries in Brussels.
The next PhD meeting will again be hosted by AFT-IFTM in Monchy St Eloi and will run from 22-24 June this year.
By Nathalie Fabbe-Costes (CRET-LOG, University of la Méditerranée – Aix-Marseille II)
