1 Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Food Production Planning and Control in Norway | NTNU – Trondheim (Norwegian University of Science and Technology)

The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Engineering Science and Technology, Department of Production and Quality Engineering, has an open position for a Postdoctoral Fellow.

The position is administratively connected to the Department of Production and Quality Engineering, Faculty of Engineering Science and Technology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). The department currently has 11 Professors, 7 Associate Professors, 4 Adjunct Professors, 2 researchers, 3 Postdoctoral Fellows and 35 PhD candidates.

The department covers the four research areas

• manufacturing systems (including machine tools, computer-aided manufacturing, manufacturing processes, robotics and automation, layer manufacturing and intelligent systems),
• production management (including manufacturing logistics, supply chain management, ICT systems for production management, lean manufacturing and manufacturing strategy),
• reliability, availability, maintenance and safety (RAMS), and
• project and quality management (including project management and quality engineering, process improvement and benchmarking).

The Postdoctoral Fellow position is related to the research project QualiFish, with a focus on logistics and the management, planning and control of food production. Traditionally, fish is caught, stored and processed in large volumes to enable scale benefits and keep unit costs down. In order to increase value creation, new solutions for differentiating the catch according to raw material quality are needed. In addition, processing companies are struggling to handle the significant supply uncertainty in the whitefish sector. The fellow should contribute in the development of concepts, models, methodologies and tools that address these and other key production logistics challenges in the Norwegian whitefish sector. This includes development of new solutions for the planning and control of material and information flow from vessels, during unloading, and in onshore processing and storage. New solutions should increase the profitability of production processes and enable individual handling and supply of product quality and volumes according to market requirements.

The applicant must have strong knowledge and skills in logistics and supply chain planning and control, and must have completed a doctorate (PhD or similar). The evaluation will be based on the applicant’s scientific and methodological quality, analytical skills, international network (academic and industrial) and pedagogic skills. The position is financed by the QualiFish research project, supported by the Norwegian Research Council. The position will be closely integrated with and be a part of the research activity in Production Management research group.

The project offers an exceptional opportunity to work on the interface between science and industrial applications, develop and test empirically motivated models and methods and produce knowledge that is both academically rigorous and practically relevant.

The appointment is for 2 years.