Taco van der Vaart appointed Professor of Supply Chain Management

Taco van der Vaart has been appointed Professor of Supply Chain Management at the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Groningen as of 1 March. He is specialized in supply chain integration in industry, buyer-supplier relationships, and present day issues in healthcare operations and supply chains.

‘My research at FEB’s research programme OPERA focuses on integration within supply chains as a way to improve the performance of the chains’, Van der Vaart says. ‘At the moment, for example, we are studying the care provided to patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease ( COPD). These patients are treated by general practitioners, physiotherapists and medical specialists. The various parties involved do not necessarily have the same interests. It is interesting to work out how healthcare can best be organized in such a situation, and to see what role financial incentives and health insurance companies play.’

Effective relationships

‘Supply chain management focuses on streamlining the collaboration and interaction between buyers and suppliers, to improve the performance both of individual businesses and of the chain as a whole. This field is ideally suited to multidisciplinary research. Successful chain integration requires good infrastructure, the exchange of relevant information, and integrated planning, but also effective relationships between organizations and/or departments. In the next few years, I hope to contribute to research on the risks and potential benefits of such relationships, especially research that looks at these relationships over a longer period of time. I’d like to know, for example, whether performance is enhanced by relationships of trust, or whether good performance leads to trust in relationships.’

MSc in Supply Chain Management

Professor Van der Vaart will stay on as Director of Graduate Studies at SOM, the research institute of the Faculty of Economics and Business. ‘That means that at the moment I am less involved in teaching. It is thanks to my colleagues at Operations that our Master’s degree programme in Supply Chain Management has received such good evaluations over the past few years. In the recent Keuzegids Masters (Higher Education Guide), our degree programme was ranked number one in its category. I hope to be able to contribute more to our teaching when my work at SOM is done.’

Curriculum Vitae

Taco van de Vaart (Hazerswoude, 1965) studied Mathematics at the University of Groningen and gained his PhD degree there as well with a thesis titled ‘Externe Logistieke Coördinatie: een studie naar de logistieke relaties tussen afnemers en leveranciers’ [External logistical coordination: A study of logistical relationships between buyers and suppliers]. He was appointed Associate Professor at the UG in 2006.

More information

Contact: Prof. Dr. Taco van der Vaart

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