The IREE supplement titled "IREE: International Efforts with European University and Industries towards Conceptualization Tools for Warehouse Design" enabled the PI (a junior researcher, Prof Ananth Krishnamurthy) to spent three months at Technische Universiteit Eindhoven (Tu/E), The Netherlands and collaborate with several industries and universities in Europe. The European collaboration is particularly important given the advanced state of the art of autonomous vehicle based technology in the European Union countries. The supplement provided the PI with a unique opportunity to enhance the research output of the project and establish strong international collaborations with academics as well as industry in the area of material handling research and practice. The extended visit enabled the researcher to enhance the analytical models and obtain industry feedback on research findings and the decision support tools being developed for design conceptualization.

Ananth Krishnamurthy is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Decision Sciences and Engineering Systems at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He obtained his MS in Manufacturing Systems Engineering and PhD in Industrial Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research targets the development and state-of-the-art application of performance modeling techniques in the design and analysis of manufacturing systems and supply chains. He is a member of INFORMS, IIE, and SME. Charles J. Malmborg is a Professor and Department Head of the Department of Decision Sciences and Engineering Systems at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He received both his MS in Industrial Engineering and PhD degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology. His research interests include material handling and material flow logistics and the design and operation of automated storage and retrieval systems. He has served as Editor for Decision Sciences for Applied Mathematical Modeling, and Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics. He is a senior member of the IIE and IEEE..
Sunderesh S. Heragu is Professor and the Mary Lee and George F. Duthie Chair in Engineering Logistics in the Industrial Engineering department at the University of Louisville. He completed his MBA at University of Saskatchewan and Ph.D in Industrial Engineering at University of Manitoba. His current research interests are in supply chain management, design of next generation factory layouts, and intelligent agent modeling of automated warehouse systems. He is a Fellow of IIE, and holds editorial responsibilities in several journals.

NSF CMMI-522798

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Ananth Krishnamurthy, Charles J. Malmborg and Sunderesh S. Heragu. Trip report presented at the NSF IREE 2007 Grantees Conference, October 30 - November 1, 2007, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana

• (2009), " Conceptualization Tools for Unit Load Warehouse Design Based on Autonomous Vehicle Technology (CMMI 0522798)," http://globalhub.org/resources/981.

1. iree 2007 109
2. Netherlands 1
3. trip report 221