Birger Raa

Birger Raa is associate professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management. He holds a master's degree in computer science engineering (UGent, 2001) and a Ph.D. in applied operational research (UGent, 2006). He teaches courses on Algorithmic Programming, Manufacturing Planning & Control, and Supply Chain Engineering to the engineering students of UGent, and he chairs the program committee in charge of the MSc Industrial Engineering and Operations Research.

His research focuses on optimizing the performance of distribution and production logistics systems. This involves applying operations research techniques (exact methods as well as computationally efficient (meta)heuristic algorithms) to challenging combinatorial optimization problems. More specifically, his main research line is the Inventory Routing Problem, a distribution logistics optimization problem that integrates inventory planning at a set of retailers with the distribution planning (i.e., vehicle routing) of the supplier to replenish these retailers.