Business
Since 1999 I work as a Ph.D. candidate in Operations Research at the Division of Robotics at Lund Institute of Technology (LTH), the technical faculty of Lund University, Sweden.
My research is led by Prof. Dr. Gunnar Bolmsjö and focuses on developing methodologies that can increase the benefits of discrete-event simulation (DES) used in manufacturing system development. My research so far has shown that industry has yet to realize the full potential of DES, mainly due to a lack of integration of this technology with other business processes and information systems. To this end, I have spent most of my time defining, expanding and refining the body of knowledge needed to successfully adopt and integrate DES into manufacturing operations.
In 2001, I completed the Licentiate in Engineering degree with a thesis entitled "Integrating Discrete-Event Simulation into the Manufacturing System Development Process".
Funding for my research has come from the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF), through my enrollment in the PROPER graduate school, and from the Swedish National Board for Industrial and Technical Development (NUTEK).
When not examining my own articles and papers, I review other researchers' work by serving on the Editorial Advisory Board of Industrial Management & Data Systems, an internationally recognized journal. This has made me look at what I write with more critical eyes, and, hopefully, improved my writing skills.
The criteria for a Swedish Ph.D. in Engineering differ from those of the U.S. and many other countries. The Swedish program is more similar to the German in length and structure, and also includes teaching responsibilities. In this regard, I have been responsible for holding lectures, computer exercises and supervising projects within graduate courses in Discrete-Event Simulation, Flexible Manufacturing Systems, and Robotics. I have also developed a Ph.D. candidate course in discrete-event simulation, and co-supervised a Master's Thesis.
Teaching adds up to about one year of the total length, with the rest of the time being spent on courses and dissertation work. The Swedish Ph.D. program also retains some specifics of its own, and should take about five years to complete, including teaching.
Before coming to the Division of Robotics, I completed a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering at LTH. My thesis focused on the challenges facing SMEs in the Japanese manufacturing industry. More than five years after the burst of the bubble economy in the early 1990s most of these companies were still struggling, but many were also changing their operations and business models in interesting ways. The work was done with Robert Pozgaj and was based on visits to 20 companies in Japan, where among many other things we also learned to tell the difference between good and bad sake.
Inbetween starting my Ph.D. studies and receiving my Masters degree, I spent a semester studying National Economics at the Lund University School of Economics and Management.
More details can be found in my CV, available upon request.