Dear All, please find below the invitation to our next PIDSIA Seminar. When: Tuesday 4th of September at noon (12PM) Where: Galleria 1 Building in Manno, second floor, room G1 204 Title: Combatting stockouts Abstract: Stockouts are a menace. Despite decades of investments and research, shelves are still empty, online orders not filled. Simply because stuff isn’t there. That is because inventory management is notoriously difficult for retailers in their multi-tier supply chains. Stocking too much causes inefficiency, markdowns, and waste. Stocking too little causes lost sales, dissatisfies shoppers, and diminishes loyalty. Finding out where, when and why what happened that caused items to be missing and at what cost is a tedious, manual, and time consuming task. So it rarely gets done. This presentation gives an overview of the causes and costs of stockouts, and invites the audience to gather ideas for the automated identification and classification of stockouts and their causes from data - in order to create and submit a collaborative funding / research proposal. Short bio: Joachim C.F. Ehrenthal is Professor for Business Information Systems at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland FHNW. He holds a PhD from the University of St.Gallen, and a MSc in Business Administration from Mannheim University. From his business and academic background, he specialises in co-creation of value and supply chain management. Registration: Pizza (or alternative food) and drinks will be offered at the end of the talk. If you plan to attend, please register in a timely fashion at the following link so that we will have no shortage of food: https://doodle.com/poll/vrw2f9mti3b3ixiu