Customer Information Driven After Sales Service ... - RePub

Acknowledgments
It gives me a great satisfaction to be able to write this section for two reasons. First, in
terms of my writing order, this is the last section of the thesis. Second, it gives me an
opportunity to acknowledge the contributions of all the people, who directly or indirectly
helped me to achieve this goal.
I cannot think of any person who deserves greater acknowledgment other than Rob
Zuidwijk. Working with him was truly a learning experience, that even included very
enjoyable weekly two hour Wednesday morning meetings. I am also indebted to my
promoters Jo van Nunen and Leo Kroon. Jo’s sudden passing left me with a hollow
feeling and I still cannot comprehend that loss. I am also thankful to Leo Kroon for
his guidance and his willingness to help me in an urgent manner despite his very busy
schedule. I also acknowledge the contributions of Moritz Fleischman, whose ability to
see any problem in a very critical manner was always a great source of inspiration.
I owe similar amount of acknowledgement to my contacts at IBM. This includes Dennis
Faber, Joost Smit, Michiel Kuipers, Mark Grashoff, Jeffrey Posthumus, and Dennis
Onderwater. On one side, Rob, Jo, and Moritz helped me to understand theoretical rigor
of supply chain management research. On the other side, Dennis Faber, Mark Grashoff,
and Jeffery Posthumus helped me to understand the practice related details of after sales
service supply chains. Together, all these people helped me to shape my views on past,
present, and future of after sales service, which resulted in this thesis.
I am also thankful to thesis committee members, Rommert Dekker and Geert Jan
van Houtum, who provided me valuable comments to help me refine my thesis as you see
it today. I also enjoyed working with Harold Tiemessen from IBM Zurich Research. Our
collaboration on Dynamic Inventory Allocation (DIA) project at IBM was definitely a
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