Dr Virginia Spiegler

Virginia L. M. Spiegler is a Reader in Operations and Supply Chain Management and the Programme Director for the MSc in Logistics and Supply Chain Management. She obtained a PhD degree in the area of Supply Chain Dynamics from Cardiff Business School. She also holds a B.Eng. in Mechanical Engineering from Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil; an MSc in Logistics and Operations Management, a Pg.Dip. in Social Science Research Methods from Cardiff University and a Pg.Cert. in Professional Development of Academic Practice from Brunel University.
Virginia has worked in the areas of material and production planning and traceability in the automotive and aircraft industries. More recently, her research work has been conducted in the food and drink industry.

Virginia’s research interest cover:

• Supply chain risk management and resilience
• Supply chain transparency, traceability and sustainability
• Supply chain digital transformation
• Control theory and system dynamics
• Production and inventory control

Virginia’s work has provided a theoretical contribution to the literature on supply chain risk management and proposed an assessment framework for supply chain resilience. By encapsulating the attributes of resilience and using an iterative cycle between theory and practice, her research proved to assist companies, such as in the food and drink industry, to increase their ability to deal with disturbances emerging from its supply chain. 

Another angle of her research work has been from a methodological perspective. When looking at capacity limitations in supply chain systems, she became interested in analysing system dynamics arising from nonlinearities. Hence, she specialised in the application of nonlinear control theory to understand the underlying mechanisms of such complex systems. 

Research grants:

• European Commission H2020: Marie Sklodowska-Curie actions Innovative Training Networks (ITN) Call: H2020-MSCA-ITN-2018. “Re-Evaluating the Transition to the Circular Economy: Models, Methods and Applications (ReTraCE)” Kent Co-I, Nov 2018-Oct 2022, €303,173.
• British Council, workshop and training on food fraud prevention using Blockchain technology, attendee, Sep 2019, Brazil, £2,000
• EPSRC, Funding Initiatives for Postgraduate Students: Understanding Complex Systems: A one day conference bridging the gap between Engineering & Business Systems Research, Feb 2012, Cardiff, £1,000

Virginia’s teaching interests include Operations and Supply Chain. 

• Operations Management 
• Strategic and Sustainable Procurement
• Dissertation and Industry-based project 

Current Supervisees

• Aaron Jackson: Managing perishability through privacy-preserving supply chain collaboration, SeNSS scholarship
• Mohammad Javad Ramezankhani: Assessing the Economic Efficiency of the Circular Economy, H2020: Marie Sklodowska -Curie scholarship
• Rukiye Kaya: Investigation into Contingency Logistics, Turkish National Education Ministry Scholarship
• Jiaqi Yin: Maintenance Policies for a System with Multiple Deterioration Processes
• Jinhao Xie: Managing risk and uncertainty of extended warranty servicing
• Duy Tiep Nguyen (Joe): Evaluating the Effectiveness of Different Government Policies in improving EU’s Recycling capacity, in collaboration with the University of Greenwich

Past Supervisees

• Frank Donkor (completed in 2020): Understanding the Supply Chain Integration - Supply Chain Sustainability Relationship: A Study Of The Pharmaceutical Industry in the UK and Ghana
• Titilayo Comfort Ogunyemi (completed in 2017): Impact of Socially Responsible Purchasing on Supply Chain Performance
• Luay Jamil Mahmoud Jum’A (completed in 2016): Analysis of Logistics Service Quality (LSQ) Factors for Third Party Logistics (3PL) Industry in Jordan and Development of Managerial Tools for their B2B Customers

• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
• Member of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport