TITLE: Sustainable Globally Integrated Enterprise

SPEAKER: Dr. Grace Y. Lin

ABSTRACT:

Supply Chain Management (SCM) has gone through significant changes with some fundamental breakthroughs by both academia and industry in the last two decades. SCM has evolved from back office operations to being the main driver of business performance. As companies transform into globally integrated enterprises, continual cost reductions, functional optimization, and efficiency improvement become the normal fabric of business, but they are not sufficient for today's rapidly changing environments. Companies have to continuously examine market conditions and customer needs, enhance their agility, flexibility, and core competencies, and collaborate with their value net partners to stay competitive and be sustainable in today's market place.

In this talk, Dr. Lin will discuss supply chain evolution and emerging themes. She will share her experience in supply chain research and practice, and describe some of her work with IBM and other companies, including the Edelman award-winning Extended Enterprise SCM, Sense-and-Respond Value Net and latest efforts in building a smarter planet. Finally, she will discuss the key competencies of a sustainable globally integrated enterprise.

Bio

Dr. Lin is an internationally recognized leader and innovator in Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Value Net Optimization. She recently founded the World Resource Optimization, Inc., and the Green Value Net not-for-profit organization to help build a more harmonious, intelligent, and sustainable planet. From 2003 to 2009, she was the Global Sense-and-Respond Leader, then the CTO and Director, Innovation and Emerging Solutions, for IBM's Global Business Services, where she worked with both public and private sector clients. She has served as Researcher, Manager, and Senior Manager for SCM and as the Relationship Manager for IBM's Integrated Supply Chain (ISC) organization at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center from 1993 to 2003.

Dr. Lin built a world-class R&D team at IBM in the 90's which pioneered extended enterprise supply chain management. She led the IBM team to win the 1999 INFORMS Franz Edelman Award for helping IBM save $750M in supply chain transformation. Dr. Lin initiated IBM's Sense-and-Respond Value Net efforts, and founded IBM's Value Chain Innovation Center in early 2000. She later created IBM's Sense-and-Respond consulting offerings and led cross-functional, cross-geographic teams to bring state-of-the-art business optimization models and technologies to IBM and its customers. The Value-Driven Services and Delivery framework that Dr. Lin led greatly enhanced the way services and solutions are delivered today. Dr. Lin also led the IBM Virtual Command Center effort, and was a key member of the IBM Smarter Planet Technology Team from 2008 to 2009. Some of the awards Dr. Lin's received include: Institute of Industrial Engineers' Doctoral Dissertation Award, IBM's Outstanding Technical Achievement Award, IBM Invention Achievement Awards, and Purdue University's Outstanding Industrial Engineer Award. Dr. Lin was elected to the IBM Academy of Technology in 2002, named an IBM Distinguished Engineer, and an INFORMS Fellow in 2006. Media coverage for Dr. Lin and her teams' SCM achievements included Forbes Magazine, the World Journal News, and Forrester, who cited Dr. Lin as one of six Supply Chain Gurus in its Supply Chain Report in 2002.

Dr. Lin has co-authored more than 60 technical articles and seven patents, with another five patents pending. She is a frequent keynote and invited speaker at international conferences, and has served on four editorial boards, several university advisory boards, and on National Science Foundation panels of US, Canada and Ireland. Dr. Lin has chaired two INFORMS Practice conferences, an IEEE conference, and an INFORMS Women in ORMS Award committee, and was twice elected as the VP Practice for INFORMS. Dr. Lin received her Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering and an M.S. in Applied Mathematics from Purdue University, and an M.S. and a B.S. in Mathematics from Tsing-Hua University in Taiwan. Dr. Lin has dedicated herself to promoting diversity and mentoring for many years. She is grateful for the support she has received from her husband, two children, family, friends, and colleagues throughout her professional career and personal life.