US-Austria Doctoral Dissertation Enhancement Project: Improving the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Through Order-Fulfillment Technology

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The pharmaceutical supply chain is critical to the quality of our healthcare system and its performance depends on the correct application of order-fulfillment technology. Industrial Engineering Ph.D. candidate Ms. Jennifer A. Pazour, in conjunction with her advisor Dr. Russell D. Meller, is conducting research that develops analytical models to analyze alternative piece-level order-fulfillment technologies that are prevalent in pharmaceutical distribution. This doctoral dissertation enhancement project is focused on developing improved planning tools for the selection of order-fulfillment technology. The research will be conducted in collaboration with the Technical University of Graz's Institute of Logistics Engineering and SSI Schaefer, a leading order-fulfillment technology provider. Both organizations are located in Graz, Austria. An optimization modeling approach will be developed and incorporated into a decision support tool that integrates Ms. Pazour's current dissertation research with her collaborators' mechanical understanding of the technologies. Not only will the research improve on the selection of current order-fulfillment technology, it also has the potential to identify gaps in the market where new order-fulfillment technology could be developed.