Professor Leisten studied mathematics and business administration at the University of Cologne, Germany. He received his Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Cologne in 1984 with a thesis on scheduling problems with limited buffer capacities under the supervision of Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. Theodor Ellinger. Afterwards, Prof. Leisten gained three years experience as a controller in the headquarter of Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt. Moving back to academia, he earned his postdoctoral lecturer qualification (habilitation) in business administration from the University of Heidelberg in 1995 with a thesis on aggregation and disaggregation in planning. In 1995 he became full professor at the University of Greifswald and held the chair of Production Management. In 1999 he was appointed as a full professor at the University of Duisburg (now University of Duisburg-Essen) to hold the chair of Production and Operations Management. Prof. Leisten is publishing continuously in international journals and is conducting continuously research projects with business partners as well as international partners from academia.

Production and Operations Management focuses on activities necessary to purchase, produce and deliver goods and services. Efficient production of high quality goods and services on time is most critical for every company’s – or supply chain’s – competitiveness and profitability.
The teaching program in Production and Operations Management prepares students to understand, model and solve decision problems related to the goal-oriented input of resources, i. e. capital, equipment, materials, technology and human resources, in companies and supply chains or networks.
Students will not only learn the state-of-the-art of production and supply chain management as well as controlling theories, concepts and techniques, but also how to select, enhance, modify and apply them to real-world management problems. Therefore, the study methodology aims at developing analytical skills as well as holistic and conceptual thinking, preparing students for careers in manufacturing, service operations, consulting and science.

The research focus of Professor Leisten and his group is on production and operations management, supply chain management and methodological aspects. An emphasis is on problems from the following fields:

Production and Operations Management

• Strategic, tactical and operative production management
• Design and optimization of production planning and control systems
• Production scheduling and production control
• Controlling of complexity in product/service planning, design, R&D

Supply Chain Management

• Design and structuring of supply chains
• Coordination mechanisms in supply chains
• Optimization aspects in hierarchical production planning

Methods

• Project planning and organisation
• Data analysis, process analysis and modelling
• Quantitative methods of optimization 
• Planning, design and implementation of manufacturing information systems

Professor Leisten has authored numerous scientific publications which appeared in refereed journals like International Journal of Production Research, Optimization, European Journal of Operational Research, Production Planning and Control, Asia-Pacific Journal of Operational Research, Computers & Operations Research, Annals of Operations Research, OMEGA, Journal of the Operational Research Society, Measuring Business Excellence, International Journal of Production Economics, Total Quality Management and Business Excellence, OR Spectrum, International Scientific Journal of Computing, PPS Management, VDI-Z, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliches Studium, Hygiene und Medizin, Schifffahrt und Technik, BWK – Das Energie-Fachmagazin and others.

Prof. Leisten is a member of the German national OR society (Gesellschaft für Operations Research – GOR), the German Academic Association for Business Research (VHB) and the EURO Working Group on Distributed Decision Making. He was president of the section “Operations Research” of the VHB. Professor Leisten and his team cooperate with companies like ANF, A.T. Kearney, Bayer, Bosch, Deutsche Bahn, Deutsche Post and others.

http://www.uni-due.de/opm/