Congratulations to Yara Kayyali Elalem for obtaining her PhD!
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In March 2023, Yara Kayyali Elalem obtained her PhD under the supervision of Prof. Ralf Seifert, director of the Chair of Technology & Operations Management (TOM) with her thesis entitled "Optimizing Sales Forecasting, Inventory, Pricing and Sourcing Decisions".
The thesis is comprised of three independent scientific papers. The first article presents a framework that helps forecast sales of newly launched products with limited historical data by leveraging data from similar older products. The second one addresses a price-setting newsvendor problem where the decision maker sells multiple products with uncertain demand and is faced with a capacity constraint on the total order quantity. The third paper analyzes the benefits of operational flexibility on both profitability and environmental sustainability by considering three different operational flexibility strategies.
The thesis provides insights for practitioners on when to use advanced forecasting methods and when to use traditional methods, as well as a decision typology for choosing the optimal pricing policy. The thesis also advises firms to choose the best sourcing strategies that increase both profitability and environmental sustainability.