News & Events   

The Chair of Logistics Management and the Chair of Production and Operations Management are delighted to invite you to a research seminar with Prof. Chris Tang with the subject of "Managing Supply Chains in the ESG Era".

The International Commitee of the Red Cross (ICRC), helping people in need all over the world, has a vast logistics operation. The HumOSCM Lab, in collaboration with the ICRC, has developed a tool that helps the ICRC organize their supply chain. First deployed in 2023, this has saved the ICRC millions of swiss francs already.

Prof. Dr. Stephan Wagner received the 2023 Award Winner for the Department of Management, Technology, and Economics (D-MTEC) for his scholarly research on startups in supply chain ecosystem and his support of students and partners in making their entrepreneurial ventures successful. 

Based on an analysis of citations, the annual study led by Prof. Dr. John P.A. Ioannidis from Stanford University identified Prof. Dr. Stephan Wagner again as a top scholar in the field of Economics & Business for single year and career-long impact. Furthermore, the ranking put him among the 0.27% top-ranked scientists in Business & Management.

The Chair of Logistics Management in collaboration with ETH spin-off Archlet hosted an inspiring evening at the ETH Dozentenfoyer. Prof. Dr. Stephan Wagner spoke about his research on cybersecurity risks and data breaches in the supply chain.

At the 2023 annual meeting of the Academy of Management in Boston, Prof. Dr. Stephan Wagner received one of the highest recognitions empirical researchers in the field of operations and supply chain management can obtain.

From 2013 to 2023, Prof. Dr. Stephan Wagner was member of the board of the Swiss national purchasing association procure.ch – Fachverband für Einkauf und Supply Management. With the general assembly 2023, his last term ended.

Prof. Dr. Stephan Wagner and Dr. Maximilian Klöckner organize two sessions on blockchain in supply chain management at this year’s POMS Conference in Orlando, Florida.

Invited as Distinguished Lecture Series speaker at the Center for Applied Research and Innovation in Supply Chain-​Africa (CARISCA) at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Prof. Dr. Stephan Wagner speaks on “Startups in the Supply Chain Ecosystem – Practice and Research”.

Rounding out her MAS studies at ETH Zurich, Loretta Berger wrote her master thesis at our HumOSCM Lab. The thesis was now awarded the Honourable Mention for the Best Master Thesis award by the Hanken School of Economics. 

A recent paper published in the Decision Sciences Journal by Prof. Dr. Seongtae Kim and Prof. Dr. Stephan Wagner was chosen as a runner up and finalist for the Decision Sciences Journal Best Paper Award 2022. The award was presented at the 2022 Decision Sciences Institute Annual Conference in Houston.

Loretta Berger, a recent graduate from ETH Zurich’s MAS program in Management, Technology and Economics and forensic specialist at the Schwyz Cantonal Police, received the ETH Medal for her master thesis on Supply Chain Management in Humanitarian Forensic Action.

Dr. Bublu Thakur-Weigold joins a roundtable panel discussion of how to benefit from technology in humanitarian work at the 2022 Digital Festival in Zurich.

A team from the Chair of Logistics Management received the prestigious Journal of Business Logistics Best Paper Award in recognition for its work on how two disruptive technologies – additive manufacturing and blockchain – can create value in supply chains.

His work on startup suppliers was recognized as a finalist for the 2021 Journal of Supply Chain Management (JSCM) Best Paper Award. The award was presented at the 2022 Academy of Management Meeting in Seattle. Prof. Dr. Stephan Wagner was already a finalist of the 2012 and 2014 awards, and winner of the 2019 award.

Niklas Friederici, a recent graduate of the MSc ETH MTEC program and former student research assistant at our chair, received the prestigious award from the SEW Eurodrive Foundation. He is the third recipient who was supervised by our chair.

Maximilian, PhD student at the Chair of Logistics Management, has been invited to present the Chair’s research on blockchain for supply chain management at the MTEC MAS+ Workshop on distributed ledger technologies.

As Ukrainian civilians suffer under military attack, the international humanitarian community has launched its response.

Maximilian is a PhD Candidate at the Chair of Logistics Management. He joined the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, in the beginning of February to work on a collaborative research project between the Institute for Manufacturing (University of Cambridge) and the Chair of Logistics Management (ETH Zurich).

Prof. Dr. Stephan Wagner will serve as a panelist on the 2nd POMS College of Operational Excellence (OpEx) Webinar entitled “Just-in-Time or Just-in-Case?” on February 4, 2022. Registration via the event page.

Luigi Job is a Master’s student in ETH’s MTEC program. In the course of his thesis, he recently joined the University of Cambridge. In Cambridge, Luigi is working at the Institute for Manufacturing (IfM) at the Department of Engineering.

Given the extensive work on supply chain risk over the past 15 years, Prof. Dr. Stephan Wagner was asked for an interview by the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation’s (SRF) online channel SWI swissinfo.ch.

The “REHAU Preis Wirtschaft 2020/2021” was awarded to Leonie Flückiger for her master thesis on blockchain projects in the luxury goods industry.

The Regional Best Paper Presentation Award at the 2021 Decision Sciences Institute (DSI) Annual Conference was awarded to Felix Bergmann for his research on the influence that various last-mile logistics services have on the purchase behavior of e-commerce customers.

Dr. Bublu Thakur-Weigold attended the Hybrid ETH Symposium at the Berlin Science Week 2021. She presented her work and talked about the important contribution of humanitarian projects in the non-profit sector.

After more than three years, Prof. Dr. Stephan Wagner published a reference book with Oxford University Press together with colleagues from the United States and Asia. The handbook supports supply chain management academia, practice and society in solving the world’s most pressing problems and issues.

The Best Student Presentation and Paper Award at the 2021 European Decision Sciences Institute (EDSI) online conference was awarded to Felix Bergmann for his research on the influence that various last-mile logistics services have on the purchase behavior of e-commerce customers.

Based on an analysis of citations, the recent Stanford University study (Ioannidis, Boyack & Baas, 2020) identified Prof. Dr. Stephan Wagner as a top scholar in the field of Economics & Business for single year and career-long impact, that is, put him among the top 2% of nearly eight million authors.

The second Humanitarian Operations and Supply Chain Management (HumOSCM) course was delivered this spring with participants from various technical specialties including two from Kenya, Africa. 

Completing her MSc studies at ETH Zurich, Charlotte Girardin wrote her master thesis at our HumOSCM Lab. The thesis was now selected by the Hanken School of Economics as the “HUMLOG Board Award Winner 2021”.

Fabian Alber’s thesis – written at the Chair of Logistics Management – entitled “The Influence of Innovative Last-Mile Logistics Services on Customer's Buying Decisions” was awarded the “Wissenschaftspreis 2021” by EHI Foundation and GS1 Germany, which is endowed with 5000 €.

At the 40th Strategic Management Society (SMS) Annual Conference, Stefan Naef presented his research on the effects of production outsourcing on product innovation. It was nominated as a finalist for the best paper award in the Corporate Strategy Interest Group.

The prestigious Best Theory‐Driven Empirical Research Paper Award at the 2020 Decision Sciences Institute (DSI) Annual Conference was given for a novel project on supply chain sustainability risks.

Our HumOSCM Lab successfully acquired a two-year ETH4D Research Challenges Grant financed by the ETH Board, which helps to improve decision-making for cost-effective medical supply. The project concentrates on the distribution of medical supplies to ICRC assisted health facilities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo/DRC, Kenya and Somalia

The 2020 “F.A.Z.-Ökonomenranking” (ranking of economists) again included Prof. Dr. Stephan Wagner as an influential economist in the category “research”. This is the sixth time in a row, and up two places compared to the previous year.

Niklas Friederici is a Master student in ETH’s MTEC program. He is currently writing his Master thesis under the co-supervision of the Chair of Logistics Management and the Cyber-Human Lab in Cambridge.

Our HumOSCM Lab successfully acquired an ETH4D Research Challenges Grant financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) which supports a project with the Ministry of Health of Uganda to strengthen logistics preparedness for disease outbreaks.

Prof. Dr. Stephan Wagner and his co-authors were chosen as winners of the Journal of Supply Chain Management (JSCM) 2020 Best Paper Award. This is another important recognition of the research excellence of the team at the Chair of Logistics Management at ETH Zurich.

Sarah Schaumann, a PhD candidate at the Chair of Logistics Management, wrote the master thesis at the chair before commencing her PhD. The Bundesvereinigung Logistik (BVL) honored her thesis with the BVL Thesis Award.

The article entitled “The Impact of Supplier Sustainability Risk on Shareholder Value” published in the Journal of Supply Chain Management (JSCM) has been shortlisted for the 2020 Best Paper Award at the 2020 Academy of Management Meeting.

The latest “Shanghai Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2020” revealed that ETH Zurich’s research in the field of management is no. 1 in the German-speaking counties and plays in the European top league. The scholarly work of the Chair of Logistics Management contributes to this achievement.

Alexander Lagrèze, a recent graduate of the MSc ETH MTEC program wrote his master thesis under the supervision of the Chair of Logistics Management, for which he received a prestigious award from the SEW Eurodrive Foundation.

The track “Humanitarian Operations and Supply Chain Management” at the 2020 Decision Sciences Institute (DSI) Annual Meeting, San Francisco November 21–23, headed by Prof. Dr. Stephan M. Wagner, accepts abstracts and papers and welcomes proposals for workshops, tutorial or panel discussions.

In its “Rendez-vous” broadcast program, Swiss Radio SRF discussed the impact of the coronavirus on the Swiss and European logistics industry and inbound and outbound supply chains. In an interview, Prof. Dr. Stephan Wagner helps to understand the current situation.

Building on prior projects and following its practice-based research approach, the HumOSCM Lab works with the World Food Program (WFP) and numerous other organizations in Uganda on improving the logistics of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) response.

After having served as an Associate Editor since 2012, the Editors-in-Chief selected Prof Dr. Stephan M. Wagner as Department Editor for the “Empirical Research in Operations Management” Department of Decision Sciences, a premier operations, supply chain, and information systems journal.

As a next step of its expansion, the Humanitarian Operations and Supply Chain Management Lab (HumOSCM Lab) joined the ETH for Development (ETH4D) initiative. This will enable the HumOSCM Lab to have access and to contribute to the wider engineering, natural and social sciences resources of ETH Zurich in humanitarian development and poverty reduction.

Michael Wolf, a graduate of ETH’s MTEC Master program, wrote the award-receiving thesis at the Chair of Logistics Management in winter 2018/19. He investigated machine learning (ML) approaches in order to optimize conventional forecasting methodologies.

Dr. Maria Arputham Ramkumar– who was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Chair of Logistics Management for more than 2.5 years – takes up a tenured position as Assistant Professor in Operations and Quantitative Methods at the Indian Institute of Management Raipur, India.

Prof. Dr. Stephan Wagner and his team hosted an inspiring evening at the ETH Dozentenfoyer in cooperation with CIPS-Switzerland. Approximately 70 leading Swiss procurement managers and three startups attended the “Supply Chain Startups: Reality Check”-event to discuss their experiences.

Bublu Thakur-Weigold from ETH Zurich’s HumOSCM Lab taught the module “Transportation Management” at the University of Lugano’s MASHLM program which prepares its graduates for the challenges of humanitarian logistics.

Logistics professionals spent two days in a seminar at the Chair of Logistics Management, and discussed topics and gained practical experience around purchasing and supplier management, digitalization, and retail distribution.

Building on several years of practice-based research, the Chair of Logistics Management launched the new Humanitarian Operations and Supply Chain Management Lab (HumOSCM Lab) at ETH Zurich to support organizations in the humanitarian sector.

The fifth time in a row, the recent “F.A.Z.-Ökonomenranking 2019” (ranking of economists) included Prof. Dr. Stephan Wagner again as an influential economist in the category “research”.

Dr. Seongtae Kim – who was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Chair of Logistics Management for three years – takes up a new tenure-track position as Assistant Professor in Information Service Management (Logistics/Supply Chain Management) at Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland.  

Alexander Fink, a research associate and Ph.D. candidate at the Chair of Logistics Management, placed 2nd in the 2018 Plattform für Innovation (PFI) “Young Innovators Professional” Award. Alexander received the award for his master’s thesis, conducted at the Chair during the 2017 fall semester.

Felix Bergmann represented the Chair of Logistics Management at the Manufacturing and Service Operations Management (MSOM) Conference held at the Marina Bay Sands Convention Centre in Singapore on July 1-2, 2019

Prof. Dr. Stephan Wagner and Dr. Alwin Locker organized, kicked-off, and moderated a conference on purchasing intelligence with procure.ch – the Swiss association for purchasing and supply management.  

The highly competitive paper of the year award was given to a team of ETH authors for their work where they used dynamic extreme value theory (EVT) to explore the links between internal control weaknesses and the severity of operational losses.  

In an interview for "Finanz und Wirtschaft", Prof. Dr. Stephan M. Wagner emphasized that supply chains cannot be adapted easily and quickly, and that it is an illusion that trade barriers help to regain innovative capabilities that now reside with outside and foreign suppliers.

Members of the Chair of Logistics Management hosted a group of logistics and supply chain managers for the highly regarded NetloP Seminar of the Kühne Foundation for a two-day seminar. The seminar involved class discussions and exciting company visits.  

A team from the Chair of Logistics Management was actively involved in numerous activities at the Production and Operations Management (POMS) Annual Conference which was held May 2-6, 2019 in Washington DC.  

The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich) was again ranked among the top-15 for empirically-focused supply chain management research. 

Thorsten Greil, a master thesis student at the Chair of Logistics Management, received the Thesis Award 2018 by the Bundesvereinigung Logistik (BVL) e. V.

At the 2018, 78^th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management in Chicago, Stefan Kurpjuweit, research associate and Ph.D. candidate at the Chair of Logistics Management, was acknowledged with the award for the OSCM division’s best student paper.

The article “Extending the Supply Chain Visibility Boundary: Utilizing Stakeholders for Identifying Supply Chain Sustainability Risks” published in the International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management was selected as an Outstanding Paper in the 2018 Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence

We are delighted to announce that this year, three out of four papers which have been selected as finalists for the Best Student Paper Award at of the Academy of Management (AoM) Conference are developed by PhD students (as first authors) from the Chair of Logistics Management.

Federico Gatti, a M.Sc. student who completed his master’s thesis at the Chair of Logistics Management, receives the “HUMLOG Best Master Thesis Award 2018”.

Sebastian Weissbeck, a M.Sc. student who conducted his master’s thesis at the Chair of Logistics Management, has been recognized with the “REHAU Preis Wirtschaft 2017".

The Chair of Logistics Management successfully completed a study on "Managing Startup Suppliers" to help buying firms tap this important source of innovation.

Dagmar Reinerth, Research Associate and Doctoral Candidate at the Chair of Logistics Management is a visiting researcher at the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, from October to December 2017.

The article “Supplier development for sustainability: contextual barriers in global supply chains” published in the International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management was selected as an Outstanding Paper in the 2017 Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence

Dennis Schuler, Research Assistant and Doctoral Candidate at the Chair of Logistics Management is a visiting researcher at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley from January to July 2017.

Anna-Lena Lentz, a M.Sc. student who conducted her master’s thesis at the Chair of Logistics Management, has been recognized with the “REHAU Preis Wirtschaft 2016.

After having renewed the generous supported for the work of Prof. Dr. Stephan M. Wagner in 2011 and 2014, the Kühne Foundation again renewed the funding

This year, the Chair of Logistics Management at ETH Zurich and the Green Transformation Lab at the Singapore Management University launched a joint initiative to host students from ETH Zurich who are working on their master theses.

At the Supply Chain Management Educators’ Conference (SCMEC) at the CSCMP Annual Global Conference on September 25, 2016 in Orlando, Florida, PD Dr. Christian Busse and his coauthors Alina Stanczyk, Kai Förstl, and Constantin Blome were honored as finalists (Top 3) for this year’s Bernard J. LaLonde Best Paper Award.

On September 23, 2016, Bublu Thakur-Weigold, Associate Director for Programs, will speak at the Science and Development Forum “Forced Migration: Research and Policy” on what logistics research reveals about the cost of humanitarian aid.

Prof. Dr. Stephan M. Wagner received the Journal of Operations Management Associate Editor Service Award for outstanding service to the journal from 2011-2015.

The ETH rectorate has granted Dr. Christian Busse the Venia Legendi for the subject area Management, upon successful completion and positive evaluation of his Habilitation thesis Perspectives on the Management of Sustainability in Global Supply Chains.

Menglei Niu, a recent MTEC MSc graduate, has been recognized with the “Studienpreis 2015” of the SEW Eurodrive Foundation, for her outstanding MSc thesis entitled “Cross-cultural Supplier Development for Sustainability”.

As in previous years, citations of Prof. Dr. Stephan M. Wagner have again increased and reached new heights

In the 2015 Decision Sciences Institute (DSI) Annual Meeting in Seattle, the paper “Responding to Suppliers Suffering Financial Distress” was acknowledged with the award for the Best Theory‐Driven Empirical Research Paper.

Around 250 participants from industrial, retail and service industries had the opportunity to enjoy fresh insights about top management views on supply chain management during the “Logistics Day” which was organized by Prof. Dr. Stephan M. Wagner and his team.

Klaus-Michael Kühne and the Managing Directors of the Kühne Foundation visited ETH Zürich to learn about the latest research conducted at the Chair of Logistics Management.

The Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Operations Management, Prof. Mikko Ketokivi from the Instituto de Empresa in Madrid, has invited Dr. Christian Busse to join the journal’s Editorial Review Board, because of his credentials as a reviewer for other journals.

As every year in September, so had the participants of ETH Zurich’s Executive MBA in Supply Chain Management their first day of class. 

During the Academy of Management Annual Meeting in Vancouver, Canada, teams from the Chair of Logistics Management were recognized as finalists for two prestigious research awards. 

Menglei Niu, Dr. Christian Busse and Prof. Dr. Stephan M. Wagner were awarded the Chris Voss Best Paper Award 2015 at the 22nd International Annual EurOMA Conference of the European Operations Management Association.

The best reviewer award 2015 from the Operations and Information Systems department of Business Research (BuR) was awarded to Prof. Dr. Stephan M. Wagner. BuR is the official journal of the German Academic Association of Business Research (VHB).

Based on his continued and high-quality service to the Production and Operations Management (POM) journal, Editor-in-Chief Prof. Kalyan Singhal from the University of Baltimore and Deputy Editor Prof. Subodha Kumar from Texas A&M University invited Prof. Dr. Stephan M. Wagner to join the journal’s Editorial Review Board.

By invitation of the Editor‐in‐Chief of IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Rajiv Sabherwal (Edwin & Karlee Bradberry Chair in Information Systems, Sam M. Walton College of Business, University of Arkansas), Prof. Dr. Stephan M. Wagner joined the journal’s Editorial Review Board.

Prof. Dr. Stephan M. Wagner became a member of the jury for selecting members for the Logistik Hall of Fame.

Kuehne Foundation dedicates another 2.2 million Swiss Francs to support the Chair of Logistics Management

Congratulations to Mr. Marios Martinos whose MSc thesis was awarded by DPD Schweiz AG as the thesis with the highest transfer potential in 2014!

Jenny Weilenmann’s thesis was awarded a Thesis Award 2014 by German logistics association Bundesvereinigung Logistik (BVL).

With the start of the fall semester, the Executive MBA in Supply Chain Management also started with its 12th course.

At the 2014 Academy of Management Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, two leading journals honored Prof. Dr. Stephan M. Wagner for his consistent and exemplary service to the operation and supply chain management community.

Professor Alex Ellinger, Editor of the International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, has nominated Dr. Christian Busse as one of the eight Senior Associate Editors of the journal.