Decisions and Operations Management

Find out about our research capabilities in decisions and operations management, and who to contact for further details.

Research in decisions and operations management is concerned with technologically sophisticated methods of solving business problems related to the delivery of products and services from the manufacturer or provider to the end-customer.

This encompasses a set of issues that are faced by all organisations and particularly those that serve a geographically dispersed market. Departmental research in this field is closely associated with the Centre for Supply Chain Management.

Our research currently covers:

  • Operations strategy - Strategies for business growth, particularly in New Zealand medium-sized companies, including operational constraints on growth, strategic pathways to growth, and the application of systems thinking to the design of operational programmes for owner-managers.
  • Supply chain management - Topics include supply chain risk, sustainability and collaboration. We also consider networks and infrastructure, particularly in and around ports. Visit the Centre for Supply Chain Management website.
  • Behavioural operations - The interaction between operational systems and human behaviour. Such interactions are often tested in the DECIDE Laboratory for Business Decision Making.
  • Quality control and the optimisation of operations - Applications of multivariate measurement systems in quality improvement and control and new polyhedral approaches to difficult combinatorial optimisation problems in supply chain operations.
  • Decision-making and interventions in complex systems - Pitfalls in complex decision making in terms of the magnitude, frequency, sequence and scope of decisions.
  • Radio frequency identification (RFID) in the supply chain in New Zealand - The critical characteristics of RFID and how to successfully adopt RFID as an enabling tool in supply chains.

Researchers in decisions and operations management

Contact details

For more information please contact:

Professor David Robb
Email: d.robb@auckland.ac.nz