Keynote Speaker
Amir Hussain, Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland
Amir Hussain received his B.Eng (highest 1st Class Honours with distinction) and Ph.D degrees, from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, U.K., in 1992 and 1997, respectively.
Following postdoctoral and academic positions at the Universities of West of Scotland (EPSRC postdoctoral fellow: 1996-98), Dundee (Research Lecturer: 1998-2000) and Stirling (Lecturer: 2000-4; Senior Lecturer: 2004-8; Reader: 2008-12; Professor: 2012-18) respectively, he joined Edinburgh Napier University (ENU), in Scotland, UK, in 2018 as a Professor in the School of Computing. He is currently institutional Research Theme Lead for AI and Advanced Technologies and founding Head of the Data Science and Cyber Analytics (DSCA) Research Group (managing over 20 academics and research staff). He is also founding Head of the Cognitive Big Data Analytics (CogBiD) Research Lab, and co-Lead of the Centre for Cardio-Vascular Health (with the School of Health and Social Care).
He currently holds a number of Visiting Professorships, including at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Shanghai University and Anhui University. He has previously held Visiting Professorships at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT - Synthetic Intelligence Lab), USA and University of Oxford (Oxford Computational Neuroscience), UK.
He is an elected Executive Committee member of the UK Computing Research Committee (UKCRC) - the National Expert Panel of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and the BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, for computing research in the UK. He is also elected Chair of the IEEE UK and Ireland Industry Applications Society Chapter.
Petri Helo, University of VAASA, Finland
Petri Helo is Professor of Industrial Management, Logistics Systems and the head of Networked Value Systems research group, at School of Technology and Innovations, University of Vaasa, Finland. His research addresses the management of supply demand networks and use of information technology in operations. Prof. Helo is also partner and board member at Wapice Ltd, a software solution provider of CPQ and IoT solutions.
Guido Orzes, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy
Guido Orzes is Associate Professor in Management Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering of the Free University of Bolzano (unibz). He graduated in Management Engineering at the University of Udine (Italy) in 2011 and received his PhD on Industrial and Information Engineering from the same university in 2015. He was also Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Exeter Business School (UK) and Visiting Scholar at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (USA). His research focuses on three main areas: Industry 4.0 technologies, sustainability certifications and circular economy assessment, and international sourcing & manufacturing. He has published more than 130 scientific works on these topics in leading operations management journals as well as in conference proceedings and books (2,200 citation and H-index of 24 in the database Scopus). He has been involved (as work package leader or co-investigator) in various EU-funded research projects. Winner of various best paper awards at international conferences, he is President the international scientific association European Decision Sciences Institute (EDSI) for 2022-2023, member of the steering committee of the unibz Competence Centre for Mountain Innovation Ecosystems, and Associate Editor of the International Journal of Operations and Production Management and the Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management.
Invited Speaker
João Carlos O. Matias, University of Aveiro, Portugal
He is Full Professor at the Department of Economics, Management, Industrial Engineering and Tourism (DEGEIT), University of Aveiro - Portugal. He is Coordinator of the Scientific Area of Industrial Engineering and Director of the 3rd Cycle (doctoral programme) in Industrial Engineering and Management. He is full researcher at the Research Unit on Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policies (GOVCOPP) and member of the Industrial Engineering and Management Research Group. His areas of research focus in Industrial Engineering and Management in general, and Green and Agile Management Systems and Eco-efficiency and Industrial Sustainability in Particular, mainly directed towards Enterprise Challenge Based Research. He has been involved in several research projects and is author or co-author of more than 250 articles published in several international journals and congresses proceedings (3,493 citation and H-index of 30 in the database Scopus). He holds a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering - Production (1994), a PhD degree in Production Engineering (2003) and Habilitation for Full Professor "Agregação" (2014) In Industrial Engineering and management.
Bernhard Heiden
Carinthia University of Applied Sciences, Austria
Bernhard Heiden is a professor of production technology in the industrial engineering degree program at the Carinthia University of Applied Sciences. He previously worked in the industry for six years. He completed his process engineering studies at TU Graz, writing his diploma thesis at ETH Zurich. He holds a doctorate in mechanical engineering from the Graz University of Technology. He was a university assistant at the Institute of Thermodynamics and Combustion Engines for four years and a student assistant at the Institute of Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer for the same period. At the Karl-Franzens University of Graz, he holds a degree in Philosophy and an MBA in Financial Management and Controlling. His current research and consulting focus is on production technology and Industry 4.0. He is co-founder and part of an Austria-wide cooperation network for 3D printing and chairman of the 3D printing group at FH-Kärnten, and part of the iMaterial research group initiated in 2018, which focuses, among other things, on research into smart materials and their manufacturing processes. Examples of project implementations were (*) processing an innovation cheque to evaluate a CNC-controlled production cutting process for industry or the FFG research project "Polygenferos 4.0", which focused on the industrial training of companies in the field of additive manufacturing. (**) An interdisciplinary project for cooperating robots with the Alpen Adria University Klagenfurt as a project partner. (***) An EU 3D printing project to develop a fiber composite 3D printer (MMO3D) and many others. He is the initiator and co-founder of Smartlab Carinthia at the University of Applied Sciences Carinthia, the first Fab Lab in Carinthia, as well as a lecturer and author of numerous articles and technical papers, as well as an editor of the book "Mit Innovationsmanagement zu Industrie 4.0" published by Springer Verlag in 2018.