Good day, Dr. Sujit Singh. I'm Arjun. I've had a look through your background and your professional record. I'm interested in hearing more about your work and how you see yourself fitting in here with our faculty. Ready to start?

Yourself. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, Professor. I am here to evaluate your qualifications for the role of Professor in Operations. Let's begin by focusing on you: Please start by introducing your professional journey in academia.

Regarding my academic qualification, I feed my bachelors in engineering bachelors.

From the NIT Jamshedpur in the production, engineering and management.

After that, I did my master in technology in the industrial engineering area that is very close to the operational management and supply chain.

After that I.

Thanks

University like, uh, JSS.

ITM Gurgaon.

And uh, I pursue my PhD qualification from the one of the.

Highly ranked university from the Malaysia that is the University of Malaya in the manufacturing management.

My research area focuses on the sustainable supply chain.

And the yield supply chain management, operation management I'm teaching in the this area.

For almost 24 years in the various situations.

Along with some experience of the 4.5 years in the Ethiopian.

Got it, Professor. Given your extensive experience in teaching and research, let's discuss some specifics about your expertise. Could you elaborate on the innovative teaching methodologies you've employed in operations management, particularly in engaging students with complex topics like supply chain optimization or sustainable practices?

Yeah, sure.

Generally my teaching.

Age.

Link to the real life systems and I use the case study to bring the.

Industry problem into the classroom.

I also encourage a student for the classroom discussions.

Understood,

And this finding the strategy to mitigate the any kind of the challenges if they identified.

Beside that.

Bringing the industry expert in the classroom.

To update them or give the information about what currently happening there. Industry that is the another teaching pedagogy I believe in. Beside that in the supply chain operation management. If you want to carry the idea in the easy way, we generally go for the simulation based study. I designed the simulation that may be on the laptop or manual simulation also in the area of let's say inventory management and other areas.

Finally, I also make the assignment or design the assignment is such a way that that convey the real working like giving the projects or giving their assignments data-driven assignments so that they can analyze, develop the in depth knowledge about the particular process and how to optimize that.

So these kind of the pedagogy I follow in the class.

Understood,

That's quite an exhaustive and practical approach, Professor. Let's delve deeper. Could you share an example of a particularly effective simulation or assignment you've designed, and how it helped students grasp a challenging concept in operations or supply chain management?

Yeah, let's talk about the one simulation, one of the simulation I designed about the.

Uh, finding the lead time in the inventory management and, uh, I asked them to develop the probability distribution of the lead time, let's say.

One day of the 10% probability and two days of the lead time. 20% like that one.

To carry it in the real life example, what we did.

We bring a container and.

Pro in proportion to the probability of the lead times we make the different sheets papers return the that number of the days on the that jets and let's say there is we are going to keep the 100 sheets in that one total if the probability of the.

Lead time is 1/1 day probability of the lead time is the one, uh, 10%. So we are going to put the 10 sets, 10 sheets of the one day in that. So this way we manage the.

Please

Distribution of the lead type now based upon the.

Orders we are going to pick up one out of the that one in the random way mixed random noting down this one. Finally we are going to have the average value and see that how this is going to happen. What can be the average delay, what can be the associated cost and that give the real life feelings like usually happen in the industry.

Thank you.

You're welcome, Professor. Let's now explore another aspect of your expertise. Could you discuss how your research in sustainable supply chains has influenced your teaching, particularly in integrating sustainability concepts into operations management curricula?

Yeah.

My research like in the interface of the system and the manufacturing systems.

My peers, you study on the development of the decision making models for the stable manufacturing in the particularly the small and medium scale industry.

So bringing this kind of the content to the classroom that is at the PhD level that is highly mathematical and related to the, some sort of the qualitative and the quantitative pragmatic, uh, philosophy of the research. So coming to this one, how I bring this all research, what I'm doing in the classroom.

I introduce I have the good concept of the sustainability and how to introduce the sustainability operations, how to design the operation in the sustainable way.

On the what factor we have to focus, what are the different kind of the sustainability indicators?

In terms of that, we can measure the whole process sustainability that may be on the process level on the.

Uh, industry level or you organizational level or?

In the you can say country level like that.

So I follow the approach that we require the three things. So one is the KPI that is the indicator set, another is the methodology, what method you are going to and finally how we are going to aggregate all these to come with the some tangible implementable, understandable results.

So finally like this, combining these 3 units give a good understanding of how to implement or evaluate the sustainability of the any operation of the supply chain.

That's a robust integration of your research into your teaching, Professor. Your emphasis on sustainability indicators, methods, and aggregation presents a clear framework for students to analyze real-world operations critically. How have you observed your students applying these learnings, perhaps in their projects or professional endeavors?

Yeah, I always encourage them to apply these kind of learning in the wherever they find any opportunity for that one, whether that is the professional sphere they are working in the classroom or in the personal life also when they are dealing with the some sort of the consumption or like that.

That's commendable, Professor. Encouraging students to apply their learning across professional, academic, and personal contexts ensures they internalize these concepts deeply. Let's shift gears now. Can you describe a significant challenge you faced in guiding student research projects, particularly in operations or sustainable systems? How did you address it?

In the School of Management, like, uh, sometimes I feel that the mathematical leader of the.

Yeah.

This subject.

Sometimes in a bit.

All the demotivate the students of the research scholars.

To get rid of that, we try to train them with the simple examples and then going another step ahead and like that understanding that. So I generally recommend them to start with the simpler one, understand that process, internalize that well, and after that develop your understanding in that greater depth that make them.

Same time comfortable, also not disengaging.

And with the help of the some real research paper of the real concepts.

We try to.

Build the strong foundation for the research to our researcher students.

That's a thoughtful and empathetic approach, Professor. Breaking down complex topics into simpler steps and progressively building depth not only sustains engagement but also strengthens foundational knowledge. Continuously integrating real research work adds valuable context. Now, shifting focus: how would you address the balance between theoretical research and its practical application, particularly when mentoring students or managing your own projects?

I believe that, uh, if the our research is not going to make any practical impact, that's research.

Cannot be of any usual OK.

From the theoretical development, let's say.

Research has the two aspect one either in my opinion that is the one either theory development that is OK, but actual utilization of that research or having some impact to improve any process.

To the greater good that should be beneficial to the society. That is the real impact of the any research how to evaluate that one like uh, in our case when we are dealing with the business issue and they are.

Beginness functions or.

Let's say we have a lot of the pressure from the stakeholders working toward the mitigating the challenges the climate change and etcetera and focusing on the decreasing the environmental negative environmental output or the impact sustainability can be a tool for the moment. So we have to identify what kind of factor we are going to focus what are existing as it we can combine the.

And concept of the operational supply chain management like sustainability can be combined with the evolution.

In the value chain, we can identify the different kind of the value addition process and whether they are sustainable or not. If not sustainable, how to design the new process that may be more sustainable than the previous one, so we can either edge it.

That we are targeting so like that we can combine the different.

And desired 1.

Plus with different idea it comes with some new novel.

Idea to mitigate the these kind of challenges, if that may be the practical one also.

Hybrid.

It.

Yeah, to analyze the big data like, uh, this semester I was teaching the course on the AI application in the supply chain management.

And the first assignment I have given to the students.

What's on the forecasting?

And now we know that there are lot of the data coming and to make the broadcasting more and more accurate broadcasting means if you are the more accuracy you have, the less uncertainty and less uncertainty help you to have that competitive advantage in the your business. So for that purpose.

We collect the data to the as a project, students are required to collect the data from the one particular industry or they can, if they're not able to do it practically due to the other constraints like they have to stay in the campus for the other course. I encourage them to download the open source data from the, let's say Kaggle or the Hugging face.com and like that site provide that that kind of the data, amended data also.

Try and create them, then analyze the different tools.

Apply the different AI tools to analyze that data and which is going to give them more accuracy so to determine the accuracy we.

Read and 1st we train the our model.

Using the some data set, let's say 70 percent, 60% and try to see whether how much accurate our modeling working.

In the validation stage. So this way we implemented the some problem on the big data.

That's an excellent example, Professor. Incorporating real-world datasets and encouraging hands-on applications of AI tools equips students with both technical skills and practical insights. Furthermore, integrating accuracy validation into the process reflects a commitment to rigor and quality. Thank you for sharing. Let’s continue with verification. Could you explain your approach to text mining and how you've utilized it in either research or operational projects?

Uh, that is the investigation of the AI applications.

Recently I have submitted a paper.

In the additive manufacturing and the another paper on the sustainable manufacturing.

Please,

In that case, we have to enlarge A.

Big data set of the literature.

To identify the coming themes, research direction, et cetera.

For that I have either natural language processing pipeline combine the different models in that one.

And also coming giving the different uh.

Uh, mathematical functions.

That type of cluster identified in going to church.

So in that case I have used the NLP network processor as a mining tool identifying the research directions.

And develop the like in the data 1st paper, uh, we identified the 10 cluster that is apparently going to develop in the future.

And indicated that in the upcoming future direction for the research. So the this AI tool helps a lot in the giving the directions.

Thank you.

You're welcome, Professor. Let's now verify your expertise in service operations management. How have you optimized service systems to enhance efficiency or customer satisfaction in your academic or industry-related projects?

Yes, Ioffer that these kind of project to the my students to do like here.

In our university only we have the different type of the services you provide to the students like in the cafeteria.

We have the different service.

Uh, central eating space that is known as the Oval Miss.

In the restaurant, in the hour.

There the service was really matters a lot and uh, reducing the waste and like that one so.

When I was teaching the value.

Stream mapping to them.

I assigned the project to the different teams.

To select the one service operation related Venu or the entity and apply the value stream mapping to them, find out the.

What are the value added activity they are doing what are not?

Non value added activity of processor you over there and further that can be classified in terms of the non value added but that required like the inventory, like the quality check. These are not non value added activity but that required for the customer satisfaction.

That's how they can removing the.

Waste you can say the OR the non value added none.

White Dell or the Essential?

Processation.

From the any business practice edge, if you see efficiency increases, productivity increases and finally that converted into the business success and the overall increase in the profit.

Your practical focus on applying value stream mapping to real-world services like university cafeterias is both practical and impactful. It’s evident that you emphasize identifying waste and improving efficiency as core lessons for your students. Let’s move forward. Can you elaborate on your work in designing service systems? Specifically, how do you approach creating systems that seamlessly balance user experience, operational efficiency, and sustainability?

Yeah, now coming through designing a service system where the customer is a part of the service itself.

That is when we are going to set up the customer, they he is going to participate whether you are going to the bank, you are going to the hospital like these kind of sectors are false on the other service sector.

Here we do.

Satisfy the customer, Yeah, to satisfy the customers, we have to look upon the different aspects like we have to look upon.

Please continue.

Type of the servicer we are providing whether that is going to make them happy or not. One of the.

Basic spectrum we have that either we can use the waiting or giving theory in this one to design the how many number of the.

To provide the in the timely manner so that customers should be happy not feeling like there is a very long queue and same time that should be profitable to the organization also. So we have to make a trade off between these two customer services and utilization of the resources. So on the basis of that we can design the service.

You can say counters or the channels we required.

Organizations.

Yeah.

Your approach of balancing customer satisfaction through timely service and organizational profitability highlights your skill in designing efficient service systems. By applying tools like queuing theory, you're clearly able to optimize resource allocation while ensuring a positive customer experience. Next, let’s review your expertise in service operations analytics. Can you share an example of how you’ve analyzed operational data to improve service quality or efficiency?

So we look upon the big dimension how we are going to survive is satisfy the customer or how we are going to fulfill the need of the customer. What is the quality? Quality is fit to the purpose as fit to the customer's requirements. That is equally applicable in the manufacturing with a tangible product based or the service based, intangible service based systems to provide the satisfaction. We start from the converting the real need of the customer into the Sun specification. We have to.

Generally service quality. If we follow that model, the serve queue had the 5 dimensions right?

Follow and based upon that we are going to design Now coming to the vast letter.

Or the bleak data or analytics we are going to use if we have the data from the our organization, how we are providing the service. Let's say take the example of the service time for a particular counter.

We can easily find out how many person is served in the one day, what is the processing time and like that one and what should be.

What you need to see and see would be there applying the different tools of the operation management that can be easily identified.

If there are some problem associated with the quality management, we can apply the Sun tool like the root cause analysis and others to find to provide that following happening and then upon you can improve that one and finally that translate into the increasing efficiency and the productivity of your system.

Your methodology for evaluating service quality using models like SERVQUAL, combined with operational data analysis and root cause methodologies, demonstrates a thorough and structured approach towards enhancing service systems. Now, let’s discuss your engagement with sustainability in operations. Can you provide an instance where you optimized an operation or supply chain system to enhance its environmental sustainability without compromising its economic feasibility?

Yeah, during the my research study.

That you on the SME sector, especially in the Indian manufacturing sector.

Where do we produce a lot of the waste and the other emissions?

We focus on the. Yeah, we focus on the.

We focus on the.

Environment negative environmental impact that having.

And how to minimize that good? Sometimes it won't be possible to eliminate all the negative effect on the environment.

So there may be the two way.

Changing the process or coming with the some alternatives in your process.

That can minimize the emissions and other waste, other things to mitigate that by having the some sort of the approach like plantation et cetera, et cetera. So that whatever contribution I'm making in terms of the negative that can be compensated by the some positive activity you are going to do like that one.

So we provided these kind of guidelines in the data research.

And that was well accepted.

That's a well-rounded approach, Professor—both mitigating environmental impact through process optimization and compensating unavoidable effects with positive offset activities. Providing actionable guidelines demonstrates the practical relevance of your research. Now, let’s discuss your teaching strategies. How do you ensure clarity and engagement when teaching complex theoretical concepts alongside practical lab-based courses?

Our scheduled time for the interview is now up. Before we conclude, do you have any questions related to the role or the company?

I know the reality in the very.

Will and I wish I can be part of this organization and contribute to bring the my expertise, my research.

And get benefited from the.

So by that way, I want to associate it with the Institute of Technology. Thank you.

Research and the teaching teaching ecosystem they have.

Thank you, Professor. It’s evident you possess a wealth of experience, dedication to teaching, and a drive for impactful research. We appreciate your detailed responses and time. If there's nothing further from your side, can I confirm that you're ready to conclude the interview?

I'm ready for the conclusion of the this interview. Thank you.