【Time】 May 12, 2010 (Wednesday), 1:30PM - 2:30PM 

【Place】 Shun-de Bldg. Rm. 510 

【Speaker】Dr. Tom Van Woensel, Associate Professor of Operations Management and Logistics, 

Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), The Netherlands 

【Host】 Dr. Lei Zhao 

【Title】Self-imposed time windows in vehicle routing problems with 

stochastic service times and fixed shift duration 

【Abstract】 

Many small-package shipping companies give customers a time window for 

the expected delivery time and display this in their online tracking 

system (e.g. UPS shows information on the delivery time window for your 

DELL computer). Obviously, once a time window is quoted to the customer, 

the carrier company wants to give the service within this time window. 

This paper deals with the specific problem of scheduling vehicles and 

setting the customer's time windows accordingly considering stochastic 

travel times and service times. 

【Brief CV of the speaker】 

Tom Van Woensel is Associate Professor of Operations Management and 

Logistics at the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven in the Netherlands. 

He holds an MSc in Applied Economics and a PhD in Operations Management 

from the University of Antwerp (Belgium). After the completion of his 

PhD, he moved to the Eindhoven University of Technology where he started 

as Assistant Professor (2003-2010) with a specialization in Retail 

Operations, distribution logistics and the analysis of manufacturing 

systems. Today, his research is mainly focused on transportation 

planning under uncertainty and retail operations. He published over 30 

papers in academic journals (including Management Science, Production 

and Operations Management, Computers and Operations Research, 

Transportation Research, European Journal of Operational Research, 

Journal of Mathematical Modeling and Analysis, and International Journal 

of Production Economics) and several chapters in international books. 

Van Woensel is also a board member of the European Supply Chain Forum, a 

collaborative effort with about 20 large multinational companies. He 

also held visiting appointments at the Université Catholique Louvain 

(Belgium), University of Antwerp (Belgium), Lessius University College 

(Belgium) and the MIT-Zaragoza Logistics Center (Spain). 

Looking forward to your participation.