Author Biography
Michael Watson is currently the world-wide leader for the IBM ILOG Supply Chain Products. These products include the network design product, LogicNet Plus XE. He has been involved with this product since 1998 when the product was owned and produced by LogicTools and then sold to ILOG in 2007 prior to being acquired by IBM. During this time, he has worked on many network design projects, helped other firms develop network design skills, and helped shape the direction of the group and product. He is an adjunct professor at Northwestern University in the McCormick School of Engineering, teaching in the Masters in Engineering Management (MEM) program. He holds an M.S. and Ph.D. from Northwestern University in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences. Sara Lewis is currently a world-wide technical leader for the IBM ILOG Supply Chain Products. She has run many full-scale network design studies for companies around the world, she has conducted hundreds of training sessions for many different types of clients, leads a popular network design virtual users group, and helps create educational material for network design. She has been involved with this group since 2006 when the network design tool was owned and produced by LogicTools. Prior to LogicTools, she held various supply chain roles at DuPont. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Business Logistics and Management Information Systems from Penn State University and is a fre- quent guest lecturer on the topic of network design at several U.S. universities. Peter Cacioppi is the lead scientist for IBM's network design product, LogicNet Plus XE. He also holds the lead scientist role for IBM's inventory optimization solution. He first began developing network design engines in 1996 as employee number one for LogicTools, a supply chain planning company that was sold to ILOG in 2007 prior to being acquired by IBM. His responsibilities include translating business design issues into formal mathematical problems. His scientific contributions have ranged from developing a targeted network design computational engine to designing both the GUI and the engine for network design multi-objective analysis. He holds an M.S. in Computer Science (with a thesis in Operations Research) from the University of Chicago, and a BA in Computational Physics from Dartmouth College. Jay Jayaraman currently manages the ILOG Supply Chain and Optimization consulting services team within IBM. This team solves clients' most challenging supply chain and optimization business problems. He brings extensive hands-on expertise in supply chain network design and inventory optimization, with projects ranging from large scale, global supply chain network design strategy to implementing production planning and inventory optimization projects at the tactical level. He has successfully led and managed consulting projects for clients around the world and in many different industries such as chemicals, consumer packaged goods, retail, transportation, pharmaceutical, and many others. Prior to joining LogicTools (later acquired by ILOG and then IBM), he worked for Kuehne & Nagel, helping run network design projects and implement the results. He holds an M.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Florida, and a Bachelor's degree in Industrial Engineering from Anna University, India.
