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ISE Department Head's Distinguished Seminar: Saif Benjaafar

Event Type
Seminar/Symposium
Sponsor
Industrial & Enterprise Systems Engineering
Location
303 Transportation Building
Date
May 9, 2022   10:00 am  
Contact
Lauren Redman
E-Mail
lredman@illinois.edu
Views
15
Originating Calendar
ISE Seminar Calendar

Operations in the Age of the Sharing Economy: What Is Old and What Is New?

Abstract: The sharing economy, a term we use to refer to business models built around on-demand access to products and services mediated by online platforms that match many small suppliers or service providers to many small buyers, has emerged as an important area of study in operations. We first describe three "canonical" applications that have garnered much attention from the operations community: (1) peer-to-peer resource sharing, (2) on-demand service platforms, and (3) on-demand rental networks. We use these applications to highlight distinguishing features of sharing economy business models and to point out research questions that are new. For each application, we describe our attempt at addressing some of these questions. We conclude by drawing connections between classical operations theory/models and theory/models that have been used to study sharing economy applications. The talk will draw on material from the following papers:

 

Bio: Saif Benjaafar is McKnight Presidential Endowed Professor and Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the University of Minnesota. He is Head of the Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering at the University of Minnesota, where he also directs the Initiative on the Sharing Economy. He is a founding member of the Singapore University of Technology and Design where he served as Pillar Head (at the rank of Dean) of Engineering Systems and Design. He is the Editor in Chief of the INFORMS journal Service Science. He serves on the board of directors of Hourcar, a social car sharing organization. His research is in the area of operations broadly defined, with a current focus on sustainable operations and innovation in business models, including sharing economy, on-demand services, and digital marketplaces. He is a Fellow of INFORMS and IISE.  

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