Dr Simme Douwe Flapper receives award for contribution to sustainable supply chain research

Dr Simme Douwe Flapper of the School of Industrial Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology has been awarded the inaugural Jo van Nunen Award. The Award was instated in memory of the late Professor Jo van Nunen of Erasmus University, and recognizes significant and lasting contributions in the field of closed-loop supply chain management. Jo van Nunen was one of the founding fathers of Dinalog, the Dutch Institute for Advanced Logistics.

Dr Flapper has been a pioneer in this field, setting up and hosting a first workshop at Eindhoven in 1996, the First International Workshop on Reuse, to define and study the contribution that industrial engineering and management can bring to the reuse of materials. Later, Dr. Flapper was involved in the EU sponsored research project REVLOG and has been an active participant and contributor in the Closed-Loop Supply Chains Workshops that this year celebrated its 13th Anniversary at INSEAD in Fontainebleau France.

The Award was presented by Professors Van Wassenhove of INSEAD and Guide of Penn State University in recognition of Dr Flapper’s initiating contribution to a field that now has developed into a mainstream field in operations management, and has had substantial impact on the business practice of sustainable supply chains. Dr Flapper was the first laureate of the Award, which will be presented annually from now onwards.

The OPAC Group and the School of Industrial Engineering are very proud of the recognition that Dr Flapper has received. Dr Flapper has been a longstanding and well-respected member in the OPAC Group and has contributed in many ways to the research, teaching and student mentoring activities of the Group.