Closed Loop Supply Chains

As technology development advances,  new products are being introduced to the market everyday, making it harder for the production of some products to survive. However, companies are obliged to satisfy demands for service parts of the old generation products, due to warranty or service contracts. Thus, on the one hand, service satisfaction is a priority for firms and on the other hand excessive parts being held renders extra carrying cost and risk of obsolescence. In his dissertation entitled End-of-Life Inventory Decisions of Service Parts, PhD candidate Morteza Pourakbar attempts to explain that in order to mitigate these risks, firms resort to employing various countermeasures.

Professor Dr. Ir. Jo van Nunen, ERIM fellow and one of the most influential and best-loved professors of Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, passed away suddenly on 12 May 2010 in Vancouver, Canada. He was 64 years old.

On Tuesday 17 November, the Transumo Foundation held a knowledge festival in the Dutch town of Houten. During the event, Transumo presented 35 innovative practical sustainable solutions to traffic problems in the Netherlands. Its audience consisted of 400 Dutch traffic mobility professionals. Transumo had teamed up with government, universities and companies to carry out research into sustainable solutions to the traffic and environmental problems in the Netherlands. The solutions examined ranged from financial incentives aimed at encouraging people to use other forms of transport and a "tool box" for traffic managers, to electric cars and new insights into how government and industry can jointly tackle the problems.

Dinalog, the Dutch Institute for Advanced Logistics, is about to get off to a flying start in Breda. Dinalog will be the international meeting place for innovators in the corporate and academic worlds and a venue for sharing expertise and ideas. It will also play a part in the joint development and implementation of innovative concepts in logistics and supply chain management.

Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University has demonstrated significant leadership in integrating social, environmental and ethical issues into its MBA programme, according to the Aspen Institute’s 2009-2010 edition of Beyond Grey Pinstripes, a biennial survey and alternative ranking of business schools. The school ranks 7th on a global list of the Top 100 business schools, being the first on the European list and second on an international non-US list.