Keynote Speakers
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Conference Welcome and Opening: Tuesday, April 23, 2024, 8:30 – 8:45 am
- Dr Anthea Amadi-Echendu, UNISA: Conference chair
- Prof Ahad Ali: Executive Director of IEOM Society International
Tuesday, April 23, 2024, 8:45 – 9:00 am
Welcome by Tshwane Executive Mayor of Tshwane
Mr. Cilliers Brink
Address: 9:00 – 9:30 am, Tuesday, April 23, 2024
OPENING KEYNOTE
Prof Lenkabula
Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of South Africa
Introduction by Prof.
Executive Dean of the College of Economic and Management Sciences
University of South Africa
9:30 – 10:00 am, Tuesday, April 23, 2024
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Dr Menghestab Haile
Regional Director for Southern Africa
World Food Programme
10:00 – 10:30 am, Tuesday, April 23, 2024
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Prof Rene Pellissier – Southern African Regional
Universities Association (SARUA)
Activating mode 3 knowledge co-production
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
8:30 – 8:45 am, Wednesday, April 24, 2024
WELCOME + RECAP OF PREVIOUS DAY:
Facilitator:
University of
8:45 – 9:15 am, Wednesday, April 24, 2024
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Portia Nkuna
Managing Director
A railway engineering and skills development organisation
Fazi Rail
Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
The application of renewable energy in the context of railway technology evolution
Portia Nkuna is a seasoned railway professional with 18 years’ experience in both technical and managerial areas. She is currently working towards enrolling for a MCom Degree specialising in Operations Management. She holds a Post-graduate Diploma in Management Practice from Henley Business School and a Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering from the University of South Africa. She has obtained certificates in facilitation, assessment design and is an accredited assessor. Portia has authored and published numerous papers on railway technology management, renewable energy and is a co-author of training material on railway safety and signalling topics.
Portia is currently the Managing Director of a railway engineering and skills development organisation, Fazi Rail. She served as a Board Member of the Transport SETA and in the National Executive Committee of the National Society of Black Engineers, as its General Secretary. Prior to founding Fazi Rail, Portia worked at the Gautrain Management Agency as the Senior Manager for signalling and communication systems and a National Signalling Specialist at the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa, respectively. Her railway career took off in 2005 where she worked as an Engineering Technician and thereafter as a Training Specialist at Transnet Freight Rail. She also worked at Siemens as a Project Engineer.
9:15 – 9:45 am, Wednesday, April 24, 2024
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Dr. Ahmed Deif
Associate Professor of Operation and Supply Chain Management
Orfalea College of Business
California Polytechnic State University
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407, USA
Dr. Ahmed Deif is an Associate Professor of Operation and Supply Chain Management. Before joining Cal Poly, Dr. Deif was an assistant professor and the program director of the industrial and service engineering department at Nile University in Egypt from 2010-2013. Dr. Deif was also an assistant professor at the industrial systems engineering dept., at University of Regina in Canada from 2008-2010 where he still serves as an adjunct professor. He is also currently an adjunct associate professor at the Industrial & Manufacturing Systems Engineering at the University of Windsor in Canada where he served as a visiting scholar from 2013-2014.
His current research interests are in innovation in supply chain management, optimal manufacturing and service planning and control, lean and green manufacturing/service systems and dynamic analysis of manufacturing systems. In addition, Dr. Deif conducts funded research on the impact of “lean gamification” in STEM education. He has more than 65 publications in books, international journals and refereed conferences some of which have won best paper awards.
Dr. Deif has a diverse portfolio in his industrial experience ranging from automotive industry where he worked at the R&D center at Chrysler Canada to steel industry to electronic industry and finally assembly industry at various engineering and consultancy capacities. As a lean and six sigma certified expert, Dr. Deif helped various industries in improving their production performance and conducted various lean and six sigma trainings in US, Canada and the Middle East over the last 20 years. He also served as a consultant for the government in different vocational training and education task forces.
Dr. Deif is a senior member of SME and member of IIE, APICS, ATMAE and IEOM organizations. He served on the scientific committee of several international conferences as well as a reviewer for many international manufacturing journals including Journal of Manufacturing Systems, Journal of Cleaner Production, Intl. Journal of Production Research and Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology.
Dr. Deif is a fellow faculty of the Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) at Cal Poly as well as an active member of central coast lean (CCL) center at Orfalea College of Business. He has taught in different international programs all over the world including Semester at Sea (SAS), USAC as well as Cal Poly Global Programs.
Education
- BS Mechanical Engineering (1999), American University in Cairo, Egypt
- A.Sc. Industrial & Manufacturing Systems Engineering (2003), University of Windsor, ON, Canada
- D. Industrial & Manufacturing Systems Engineering (2006), University of Windsor, ON, Canada
Thursday, April 25, 2024
8:30 – 8:50 am, Thursday, April 25, 2024
WELCOME + RECAP OF PREVIOUS DAY:
Facilitator:
Company
8:50 – 9:20 am, Thursday, April 25, 2024
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Dr. James J. Cochran
Professor of Applied Statistics and the Mike and Kathy Mouron Chair
Culverhouse College of Business
The University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa, AL, USA
James J. Cochran is professor of statistics and the Mike & Kathy Mouron Research Chair with the University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College. He is also a Research Associate with the Alabama Transportation Institute. He has been a Visiting Scholar with Stanford University, University of South Africa, Universidad de Talca, Pôle Universitaire Léonard De Vinci, University of Limpopo, University of Namibia, and University College London.
Dr. Cochran’s research focuses on problems at the interface of statistics and operations research, He has published eighteen book chapters, over fifty research articles, and almost 100 other articles. He has taught a wide range of statistics and operations courses from the introductory undergraduate level through PhD seminars in both statistics and operations research, and he is coauthor of eight textbooks in statistics, operations research, analytics, and data visualization. He has served on the editorial boards for eighteen journals and as Editor-in-Chief of INFORMS Transactions on Education from 2007-2012.
Dr. Cochran is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Wiley Encyclopedia of Operations Research and the Management Sciences, Wiley Series in Operations Research and Management Science, Oxford Anthology of Statistics in Sports series, and INFORMS Analytics Body of Knowledge. He has served as a consultant to a wide variety of corporations, government agencies, and not-for-profit organizations around the world.
Dr. Cochran established an international teaching effectiveness colloquium series and has organized these events in Uruguay, South Africa, Colombia, India, Tanzania, Argentina, Kenya, Nepal, Cameroon, Croatia, Cuba, Estonia, Fiji, Mongolia, Moldova, Bulgaria, Tunisia, Grenada, and Sri Lanka. He was a founding co-chair of Statistics without Borders and a founding committee member for the INFORMS Pro Bono Analytics initiative. He has delivered keynote addresses to conferences in twenty-seven nations.
Dr. Cochran has received the INFORMS Prize for the Teaching of OR/MS Practice, Mu Sigma Rho Statistical Education Award, Waller Distinguished Teaching Career Award, ASQ’s William G. Hunter Award, and Karl E. Peace Award for outstanding statistical contributions for the betterment of society. He is a three-time finalist for the Innovative Applications in Analytics Award and a finalist for the Melbourne Business School Practice Prize for Achievement in Business Analytics. He is also a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and a Fellow of INFORMS, and he has received both the American Statistical Association’s Founders Award and the INFORMS President’s Award.
9:20 – 9:50 am, Thursday, April 25, 2024
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Dr. Ertunga C. Ozelkan
Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Department of Systems Engineering & Engineering Management
Associate Director of the Center for Lean Logistics and Engineered Systems
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
USA
Dr. Ertunga C. Ozelkan is a Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering, and the Associate Director of the Center for Lean Logistics and Engineered Systems at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He is also the President and Founder of Operational Excellence Professionals, LLC, which provides Lean Six Sigma and continuous productivity improvement solutions to the industry. Before joining academia, Dr. Ozelkan worked for i2 Technologies, a leading supply chain software vendor and for Tefen USA, a systems design and industrial engineering consulting firm. Dr. Ozelkan holds a Ph.D. degree in Systems and Industrial Engineering from the University of Arizona. He teaches courses on production control systems, lean six sigma practice and management, lean supply networks, decision and risk analysis, designed experimentation, and systems design and optimization. His current research interests include flexible production systems planning and optimization, and optimal group purchasing decisions in supply chains. Dr. Ozelkan has been actively serving in leading roles in several national and international professional societies over the years including the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineer’s (IISE), American Society of Engineering Management (ASEM), the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) and the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE). He has published over 90 articles in international journals and conferences, and he has received multiple awards, including the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineer’s (IISE’s) Operational Excellence Division’s (former Lean Division) excellence in teaching award, the Merl Baker Award for outstanding service and contribution from the Engineering Management Division of the ASEE and the Meritorious Service Award from the ASEM.
Keynote Title: How does/can AI play a Role in Supply Chains?
Abstract
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not new but has found many applications in recent years with the availability of data, advanced in computing power and machine learning methodologies. More and more AI is being utilized by large corporations for managing various processes in their supply chains. Supply chain management involves Strategic/Design, Tactical/Planning and Operational/Execution related decisions related to Create, Source, Make, Move, Market, Sell, and Return processes. So how does AI fit in to these wide range of processes? This talk will provide an overview of the current role of AI, potential applications, and the outlook to manage supply chains.
9:50 – 10:20 am, Thursday, April 25, 2024
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Thuli N. Khumalo
Executive Manager
City of Johannesburg
Gauteng, South Africa
Dr Khumalo is the Executive Manager, Council for Geoscience. She had held various positions previously, including being the Chief Operations Officer of the Presidential Climate Commission, having joined the PCC in its infancy stage in 2021.
Dr Khumalo is a sustainability expert and formerly a Deputy Director-General responsible for Climate Change and Air Quality in the Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment (DFFE). Before then, she served as the Chief Director: Air Quality Management and National Air Quality Officer for eight (8) years. She joined the Department of Environmental Affairs in 2009 as Director: Atmospheric Policy, Regulation and Planning, and had previously been a Senior Environmental Scientist at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
She holds a PhD in Environmental Science from the University of the Witwatersrand and has recently completed a Master of Philosophy in Corporate Strategy from the Gordon Institute of Business Science, among others. Dr Khumalo has considerable experience in organizational leadership and team management; strategy development and implementation; stakeholder management and co- ordination; as well as policy development and implementation.
10:20 – 10:50 am, Thursday, April 25, 2024
KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Talifhani Banks
Founder of Spaza Eats
City of Cape Town
Western Cape, South Africa
Meet Tali)ani Banks, the visionary founder and Group CEO of AnalyicsX. A technology conglomerate transforming industries through data & software innovations. With a background in Statistics and Econometrics from the University of Pretoria, Talifani Banks honed his expertise at leading
corporations like Massmart and Pick n Pay before launching his entrepreneurial journey.
His ventures include the multi-award-winning Analytics Advertising and the sought-after Spaza Eats.
Known for pioneering the application of the TIPS framework in service delivery, Talifani has earned accolades such as Top Entrepreneur 2022, Best Tech CEO in Africa, and BRICS Entrepreneur
of the Year 2022. Join us as he shares insights from his remarkable career and the
future of tech-driven innovation.