[ Supply Chain Management ]

Program Director

Roby Thomas, D.B.A.
Center for Business and Economics

Roby Thomas joined the Elmhurst faculty in 2001. He earned his undergraduate degree in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology at New Delhi, and his graduate degree in operations management and information systems from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. He has more than 17 years of teaching and research experience in production and operations management, operations research, and information systems.

Dr. Thomas specializes in supply chain management, the optimization of business systems, and technology-focused business process redesign. He held a faculty position at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and managed a consulting group specializing in business process reengineering, supply chain system design and management, data-mining-based customer relationship management, and database marketing. His group’s consulting projects included the design and implementation of materials requirement planning (MRP) systems, the design of inbound logistics technology infrastructure requirements, and the development of a data-mining-based customer relationship management strategies.

Dr. Thomas also has conducted training programs for senior- and middle-level college administrators, covering topics such as strategy development, structure and systems development, the alignment of structure and culture with strategy, business process design, project management, change management, and the leveraging of technology for change.