Anupam Agrawal

Biography

Dr. Agrawal researches, teaches and has worked in the arena of Supply Chain Management (SCM).

In a career spanning over a decade in the industry, he has worked in various areas of SCM, specifically procurement, supplier development, and new product development, with ITW Signode Inc, Procter & Gamble, and Tata Motors.  His empirical research with firms such as Tata Motors, Tata Daewoo, BMW, and Knorr Bremse focused on procurement, sourcing of modular components and learning between buyers and suppliers, and has informed the practice of supply chain at these firms.  He advises the Government of India on streamlining the Public Distribution System and improving the efficacy of the Mid-Day Meal scheme. He also works with startups such as Technosys and Edunirvana on their strategic positioning, and Acuva Technologies on their supply chain strategy.

His academic research has three streams. The first stream focuses on SCM with special interest themes of learning & depreciation of learning (or forgetting) in supply chains, retailing & returns, healthcare, and sustainability. In this stream, he has published in academic journals such as Management Science, Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, California Management Review, Production and Operations Management, and Journal of Cleaner Production. The second stream looks at how firms can benefit from better raw materials sourcing and new manufacturing techniques for producing these raw materials, including Nanomachining. In this stream, he has published in academic journals such as  Wear, Computational Materials Science, Precision Engineering, and the Journal of Manufacturing Science and Engineering. His third research stream centers around social issues such as combating crimes against women and managing healthcare in underserved areas; he is actively researching in this arena.

He teaches courses in the arena of Operations Management at Mays to Ph.D., MBA, and Undergraduate students. He has received many teaching awards including Best Course Taught (Supply Chain Management) and Favorite Professor by MSTM 2013 class at UIUC and has been on the Excellent teachers’ list of UIUC for all seven years that he has taught there (2008-2015). He was also nominated for the Teaching Excellence Award for Undergraduate Teaching in 2012. At Mays, his evaluations have averaged around 4.8 out of 5 for the last seven years across undergraduate, MBA, MS and Ph.D. courses. He has written several case studies for his classes. Two case studies in public domain are : 1. The Patel Motel – A Tale of Entrepreneurship and 2. Abdul the Newsboy

He reviews regularly for Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Production & Operations Management, Journal of Operations Management and European Journal of Operational Research. He received the POMS Best Reviewer award in 2016 and M&SOM Meritorious Service Award in 2017. He was the editor of POMS  Chronicle for 2018-2020.

Dr. Agrawal is very actively involved with the education of underprivileged children, specifically with (a) Laxmi Ashram, an organization in Kausani hills in India, that works for the education of underprivileged girls, and (b) Anjali School, located in the city of Varanasi in India, that works for the education of orphans and the poorest of the poor.

Dr. Agrawal currently holds the Research Fellow position at the Mosbacher Institute at the Bush School of Government and Service. Read his policy briefs: 1.  Call of the Pandemic: Rethinking Global Value Chains and 2. A New Initiative in India Empowers Women and Combats Harassment.