Rene Haijema

Rene Haijema serves as Associate Professor in Operations Research and Logistics at Wageningen University & Research, focusing on inventory management and food waste reduction in retail supply chains. He actively contributes to the International Society of Inventory Research (ISIR) as Executive Committee member and leads multi-disciplinary projects with industry partners to develop practical logistics solutions.

Education background:

• Graduated with distinction from University of Amsterdam
• PhD in Operations Research (2008), University of Amsterdam; thesis on Markov Decision Theory for blood product inventory management

His research centers on perishable inventory optimization using stochastic dynamic programming and simulation, with applications in food waste reduction, dynamic pricing, and omni-channel retail systems. Recent work emphasizes supply chain resilience against disruptions like COVID-19 through decision support systems that integrate real-time quality data.

Haijema's publication trajectory shows increasing focus on food waste reduction since 2015, with 2020-2024 works concentrating on dynamic shelf life management, omni-channel inventory rationing, and resilience in European agri-food networks. His approach consistently bridges theoretical stochastic optimization with practical industry implementation.

Scientific recognition includes:

• ORTEC Excellence in Advanced Planning Award (NGB/ORTEC)
• INFORMS Best Poster Award
• Finalist: KNAW-Christiaan Huygens Science Award
• Finalist: Euro Excellence in Practice Award
• ISIR Service Award (2024)

Haijema has supervised four PhD completions and currently mentors three doctoral candidates. His grant portfolio features Horizon 2020's REFRESH project (dynamic pricing for waste reduction), TIFN RE-002 (spoilage reduction), and ZeroW (zero-waste supply chains), involving collaborations with European industry partners on decision support system development.

He operates within Wageningen's Operations Research and Logistics group, which develops computational models for perishable supply chains. Current team efforts include REFRESH project implementations and DAVINC3I's virtualized floricultural logistics network, emphasizing real-world impact through industry-academia partnerships.