Keynote Speakers
Wednesday, July 2, 2025
Welcome Address from the Host University: Wednesday, July 2, 2025, 10:00 – 10:20 am
Opening Keynote I: Wednesday, July 2, 2025, 10:20 – 11:00 am
Prof. George Q. Huang
Chair Professor of Smart Manufacturing
Director of Research Institute for Advanced Manufacturing
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Hung Hom, Kowloon
Hong Kong
eorge joined Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in December 2022 as Chair Professor of Smart Manufacturing. Prior to this appointment, he was Chair Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering and Head of Department in Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering at The University of Hong Kong. He gained BEng and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Southeast University (China) and Cardiff University (UK) respectively. He has conducted research projects in areas of Smart Manufacturing, Logistics, and Construction through IoT-enabled Cyber-Physical Internet and Systems Analytics. His research has been supported with substantial government and industrial grants. He has directed a strong research team and collaborated closely with leading academic and industrial organizations through joint projects and start-up companies. He has published extensively and his works have been highly cited by research communities. He serves as associate editors and editorial members for several international journals. He is Chartered Engineer (CEng), Fellow of IEEE, IISE, ASME, HKIE, IET and CILT.
Keynote II: Wednesday, July 2, 2025, 11:00 – 11:40 am
Dr. Maged M. Dessouky
Dean’s Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering and Spatial Sciences Institute
Department Chair, Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
USC Viterbi School of Engineering
University of Southern California
Los Angles, California, USA
Dr. Dessouky received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University in 1984 and 1987, respectively. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from the University of California at Berkeley in 1992.
His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Society of Manufacturing Engineers, PATH, Caltrans, FTA, and Department of Defense. He was recipient of the 2007 Transportation Science & Logistics Best Paper Prize (“Optimal Slack Time for Schedule-Based Transit Operations”). He is a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial Engineers. Dr. Dessouky was a recipient of IIE Operations Research Division Excellence in Teaching Award, the USC Associates Award in Teaching (Top University Award for Teaching), Alpha Pi Mu/Omega Rho Outstanding Teacher of the Year in Industrial Systems Engineering, the USC Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the TRW School of Engineering Teacher Award. He is area/associate editor of Computers & Industrial Engineering, IIE Transactions, and Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, on the editorial board of Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, and previously served as Area Editor of ACM Transactions of Modelling and Computer Simulation and IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems.
Keynote III: Wednesday, July 2, 2025, 11:40 am – 12:20 pm
Dr. Min Xie
Chair Professor, Department of Systems Engineering
Chair Professor, Affiliate, Department of Data Science
City University of Hong Kong
Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong, PRC
Fellow of IEEE (2006)
Elected Member of Int Statistical Institute (2010)
Member of European Academy of Sciences and Arts (2022)
Asian Region VP of Inst of Industrial and Systems Engineers (2022-2024)
M. Xie completed his undergraduate studies in Sweden, earning a direct MSc from the Royal Institute of Technology in 1984, followed by a PhD from Linköping University in 1987. In 1991, he joined the National University of Singapore (NUS) as one of the first recipients of the prestigious Lee Kuan Yew Research Fellowship, later becoming a full professor in 2005. In May 2011, Professor Xie moved to the City University of Hong Kong (CityU), as Chair Professor of Industrial Engineering. He has conducted extensive research in industrial engineering, focusing on reliability engineering and quality management, and has published over 300 journal articles and authored 10 books. At NUS and CityU, Prof Xie supervised more than 70 PhD students, now holding positions in industry and academia across various continents. Prof Xie has also served as editor, associate editor, or on editorial board member for over 10 leading international journals. Prof Xie was elected a Fellow of the IEEE in 2005 and elected to the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. He currently serves as Chairman of Fellow Evaluation Committee for IEEE TEMS society and VP for Asian Region of IISE.
Keynote IV: Wednesday, July 2, 2025, 12:20 – 1:00 pm
Industry Keynote – Tentative from Airbus
1:00 – 2:00 Lunch Break
2:00 – 3:30 Parallel Sessions
3:00 – 4:00 Break
4:00 – 6:00 Parallel Sessions
Thursday, July 3, 2025
Keynote V: Thursday, July 3, 2025, 10:20 – 11:00 am
Dr. Guoqing Zhang
Professor
Department of Mechanical, Automotive and Materials Engineering
Faculty of Engineering
University of Windsor
Windsor, Canada
Guoqing Zhang, is a Professor in the Faculty of Engineering, University of Windsor, and also the director of Supply Chain and Logistics Optimization Research Centre. He received his Ph.D. degree in Management Sciences from City University of Hong Kong in 2000. His recent research interests include optimization in supply chain management, logistics, algorithms design and development, RFID, and facility/warehouse layout. He has published articles on those areas in journals such as Computational Optimization and Applications, IIE Transactions, European Journal of Operational Research, Computers and Operations Research, and Operations Research. He has served as a consultant to Auto, Energy, and Foods industries.
Keynote VI: Thursday, July 3, 2025, 11:00 – 11:40 am
Dr. Petri Helo
Professor of Industrial Management, Logistics Systems
Head of Networked Value Systems Research Group
School of Technology and Innovations
University of Vaasa
Finland
Petri Helo is Professor of Industrial Management, Logistics Systems and the head of Networked Value Systems research group, at School of Technology and Innovations, University of Vaasa, Finland. His research addresses the management of supply demand networks and use of information technology in operations. Prof. Helo is also partner and board member at Wapice Ltd, a software solution provider of CPQ and IoT solutions.
Keynote VII: Thursday, July 3, 2025, 11:40 am – 12:20 pm
Dr. Farouk Yalaoui
Senior Director (Vice President) for Research
Full Professor
University of Technology of Troyes (UTT)
Troyes, France
Professor Farouk YALAOUI is currently a full Professor at Troyes University of Technology (UTT), France, where he is the Senior Director for Research of UTT. He is also scientific director of Industrial Chair “Connected Innovation” of UTT since 2016. He is the former director of LOSI Lab. (Logistiques et Optimisation des systèmes Industriels) of UTT and and former director of Services and Industries of The future of Troyes Institute (ISIFT).
He obtained his Engineering degree in Industrial Engineering from the Polytechnics School of Algiers (Algeria) in 1995, his master’s degree in Industrial System Engineering from Polytechnics Institute of Lorraine (Nancy, France) in 1997, his Ph.D. degree in Production Management from the Troyes University of Technology (UTT) in 2000 and followed by a Habilitation à diriger les recherches (Dr. Hab) from Compiegne University of Technology (UTC) in 2006. His research topic focuses on the scheduling problems, system design, operations research, modeling, analysis and optimization of logistic and production systems, reliability and maintenance optimization and on optimization problems in general. He supervised or co-supervised 29 Ph.D thesis and more than 82 projects since 2001. He is founder and partner of OPTA LP SAS company since 2013.
He is author or co-author of a pattern and more than 520 contributions, publications or communications with 1 patent; 3 books (Ellipses, Hermes-Lavoisier, Willey and Sons), 6 edited books (Springer), 16 book chapters and 102 papers in journals such as IIE Transactions, European Journal of Operational research, International Journal of Production Economics, IEEE Transactions on Reliability, Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Computer & Operations research, Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing. He also published more than 320 papers in conference proceedings. He had presented 60 invited speeches (seminaries or conferences plenary sessions). He was invited by different universities (11) more than 20 times.
He is member of editor board of the book series “Automation and Control – Industrial Engineering”, ISTE Wiley, London, since 2014. He served or serves as editor to 20 International journal Boards: Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence (EAAI, Elsevier, IF. 6,212, 2022), The Scientific World Journal as part of the journal’s Operations Research subject area (TSWJ), International journal of Supply and Operations Management (IJSOM), British Journal of Mathematics &computer Science (BJMCS), Journal of Risk Analysis and Crises Response (JRACR), Journal., American Journal of Operations Research (AJOR), Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM), Advances in Computer Science and Engineering (ACSE), Modeling and Simulation in Engineering (MSE), Advances in Artificial Intelligence (AAI), International Journal of Applied Logistics (IJAL). He served as guest editor for Journal special issue (Journal of Multiple Valued Logic and Soft Computing, Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing). He is reviewer for more than 36 international journals.
He is founder and member of steering committee of IWOLIA (since 2010) SHEIC (since 2019) and member IESM-MOSIM Steering Committee, since 2019, Membre IFAC/MIM Steering Committee, since 2021. He is advisory Committees/Organizing Committees members of 36 conferences. He is also member of several international conference committees (about 154 conferences) as (INCOM2021, IFAC WC 2020, IEEE ICALT’2019, INCOM 2018, ICINCO 2017, ACIIDS 2017, IEEE SSCI 2016, MIM 2016, INCOM2015, IESM 2015, MIC’2015, SSEMO-WCCI 2014, IEEE-CIPLS 2014, FLINS’14, IEEE-CIPLS 2013, CIIA’2013, EMO13, MIM 2013, CoDIT 2013, ICSENT’2012, IEEM 2012,), member more than 25 organization committees of conferences and general Chair of IFAC MIM 2016. He organized and or Chair more than 115 tracks or sessions in conference.
He is Vice Chair of IFAC (International federation of Automation and Control) TC group 5.2. He is Chair of a Working Group on multiobjective optimization. He is member of IFAC TC group 5.1. He is member of French Universities National Council (CNU) field Automation, Control, Industrial Engineering (section 61). He is member and expert for French ANR agency, and for different agency such French AERES Agency, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Algerian PNR program.
He is member of Algerian Academy of Science and Technology (AAST) since 2015. He obtained of Annual Award 20117 of the IFAC French National Member Organization (NMO).
Keynote VIII: Thursday, July 3, 2025, 12:20 – 1:00 pm
Industry Keynote – Tentative from Forvia / Valeo
1:00 – 2:00 Lunch Break
2:00 – 3:30 Parallel Sessions
3:00 – 4:00 Break
4:00 – 6:00 Parallel Sessions
Friday, July 4, 2025
Keynote IX: Friday, July 4, 2025, 10:00 – 10:40 am
Dr. Jianxin (Roger) Jiao
Associate Professor of Enterprise Systems Engineering
G,W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA, USA
Dr. Jiao joined the Woodruff School in December 2008. Prior, he was an Assistant Professor and then Associate Professor in the School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Before his career in Singapore, he was a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology from 1998 to 1999. From 1993 to 1994, he was a Lecturer of Industrial Engineering in the School of Management at Tianjin University, China, and from 1988 to 1990, he worked as an Associate Lecturer in the Department of Industrial Design at Tianjin University of Science and Technology, China.
Dr. Jiao’s research activities are geared toward a good leverage of practical relevance and academic rigor. He is interested in a number of investigations related to an extended enterprise, involving engineering design and product development (design theory and methodology, product family and product platform, customer requirement management, affective design and Kansei engineering, design project management, service modeling and service delivery system design), enterprise engineering and industrial systems (reconfigurable manufacturing systems, production planning and control, supply chain management and engineering logistics, system modeling and simulation, sales/marketing manufacturing interface, global manufacturing and operations, mass customization), as well as manufacturing and management information systems (artificial intelligence in design and manufacturing, industrial applications of e-commerce, virtual enterprise).
His research is motivated by the current trend of manufacturing companies to move toward global manufacturing in order to better leverage capabilities and resources worldwide. Product realization then becomes globally distributed and necessitates collaboration that transcends geographic boundaries. Strategic engineering with a focus on product creation suggests itself to be of primary importance for companies to gain competitive edges. Product design has to address individual customer needs along with diverse market niches, while maintaining low costs and near mass production efficiency. Build-to-order and reconfiguration have become common norms. The traditional spectrum of product fulfillment therefore must be expended to encompass marketing, design, production, as well as supply and value chains; and must be aligned with the self-adaptability of a learning organization. Dr. Jiao’s vision is that the product creation horizon will be shifted from a physical product perspective to a total life cycle experience. Product creation should be more than just dealing with pieces of hardware, but rather should be enacted as the co-design of an entire ecosystem, including fulfillment, services, experiences and human satisfaction at the individual and the community levels.
Education
- Ph.D. (Industrial Engineering), Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, 1998
- M.E. (Intelligent Manufacturing), Tianjin University, China, 1993
- B.E. (Mechanical Design), Tianjin University of Science and Technology, China, 1988
Keynote X: Friday, July 4, 2025, 10:40 – 11:20 am
Alexandre Dolgui, Dr.habil., Ph.D., IISE Fellow
Professor and Head
Automation, Production and Computer Sciences Dept.
IMT Atlantique, LS2N-CNRS
La Chantrerie, 4, rue Alfred Kastler – B.P. 20722
F-44307 NANTES Cedex 3, France
Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Production Research (IJPR)
Dr. Alexandre Dolgui is an IISE Fellow, Distinguished Professor and the Head of Automation, Production and Computer Sciences Department at the IMT Atlantique, France. His research focuses on manufacturing line design, production planning and supply chain optimization. His main results are based on the exact mathematical programming methods and their intelligent coupling with heuristics and metaheuristics algorithms. He is the co-author of 5 books, the co-editor of 25 books or conference proceedings, the author of 270 refereed journal papers, 4 prefaces of books, 31 editorials and 37 book chapters as well as over 400 papers in conference proceedings. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Production Research, an Area Editor of Computers & Industrial Engineering, past Associate Editor of International Journal of Systems Science (2005-2008), IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics (2006-2009) and Omega-the International Journal of Management Science (2009-2012), consulting Editor of the International Journal of Systems Science (2009- ). He is Member of the Editorial Boards for 27 other journals, including the International Journal of Production Economics. He is an Active Fellow of the European Academy for Industrial Management, Member of the Board of the International Foundation for Production Research, former Chair of IFAC TC 5.2 Manufacturing Modelling for Management and Control (2011-2017, currently a vice chair), Member of IFIP WG 5.7 Advances in Production Management Systems, IEEE System Council Analytics and Risk Technical Committee, Guest editor of special issues of European Journal of Operational Research, International Journal of Production Research, International Journal of Production Economics, Omega – The International Journal of Management Science, Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, Journal of Mathematical Modeling and Algorithms, and Annual Reviews in Control; he was General Scientific Chair of the 12th IFAC symposium INCOM’06, and IFIP APMS’2021, Chairman of International Program Committee of SCM’02, MOSIM’04, INCOM’09, INCOM’12, IESM’13, MIM’13, INCOM’15, IESM’17, GSC’18, MIM’19 and Chairman of Steering committee of MIM’16. Chairman of Organizing Committee of the International Conference MOSIM’01 and ROADEF’2011; last ten years, he was Member of Program Committees of over 200 International Conferences.
Keynote XI: Friday, July 4, 2025, 11:20 am – 12:00 pm
Prof Bingwen Yan
Head of Department
Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering
Cape Peninsula University of Technology
Cape Town, South Africa
Bingwen Yan is based at Faculty of Engineering and The Built Environment, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Cape Town, South Africa.
Bingwen Yan is a professor and the Head of the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa.
His research spans a wide range of fields, including industrial engineering, engineering management, public administration and business management.
Keynote XII: Friday, July 4, 2025, 12:00 – 12:40 pm
Pervaiz Akhtar, PhD, MSc, MBA, BSc, PCAP & HE UK Senior Fellow
Chair (Full Professor) in Business Analytics, Big Data & Supply Chains
Director of MBA Programmes
University of Aberdeen
Aberdeen, UK
Pervaiz Akhtar is Director of the MBA suite of programmes and Chair (Full Professor) in Business Analytics, Big Data and Supply Chains. Professor Akhtar utilises mixed methods and modelling to optimize and de-risk operational performance, supply chains and business value. He was Associate Dean of Graduate Studies before joining the University of Aberdeen. He has been a Visiting Professor of Big Data and Business Analytics/Management Science (e.g., IESSEG, France) and a member of Executive Groups. He is also associated with Imperial College London, as his philosophy of continuous learning.
Due to his all-round excellence in leadership, research and teaching, he is one of only 155 academics across all disciplines in the UK who earned their Professorship under the age of 35 as per HE records and became the youngest professor from his country of origin (out of over 212 million population). He has also set consecutive promotion records.
Professor Akhtar has capitalised on over 20 years of academic, consulting and industrial experiences from the UK, France, New Zealand and other countries – played leading roles in teaching and research. By integrating informatics, analytics and big data applications in undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, Professor Akhtar serves to bridge the gap between academic practices and industrial requirements. He has played multiple senior management roles in industry and worked with private and non-profit-making organizations such as UNICEF, JCCP, Oxfam, MSF, Islamic Relief, Red Cross, Unilever and Reckitt Benckiser.
Along with his intriguing interdisciplinary education (BSc in Double Major Mathematics and Statistics, MBA, MSc in Logistics and Supply Chains, PCAP, Senior UKHE Fellowship, PhD in Supply Chain and Operations Management with extensive Data Science Applications), his research has appeared in top-ranked journals (i.e., A*/FT50/CABS4/Q1) spanning a range of domains and industries including food, healthcare, FMCG, manufacturing, humanitarian operations, performance measurement, business value creation, logistics, supply chains, technology, big data analytics and data science skills.
He has extensive experience of supervising UG, PG and PhD students and warmly welcomes all students. PhD students are particularly encouraged to apply in his area of interest such as big data, blockchain technology, analytics, humanitarian logistics and business operations.
Professor Akhtar has worked on multiple projects with more than 20 companies and organizations worldwide (e.g., United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Malaysia, Pakistan and Europe). He has completed more than 10 funded projects and received awards – the value more than £5 million.
1:00 – 2:00 Lunch Break
2:00 – 3:30 Parallel Sessions
3:00 – 4:00 Break
4:00 – 6:00 Parallel Sessions