PhD Candidate - Supply Chain Management and Life Cycle Management of Standardized Logistics Assets - CDD 36 months

School of the ministry in charge of industry, IMT Mines Albi is a school of the Institut Mines-Télécom, 1st group of engineering and management schools of France. At the forefront of industrial and academic issues on the international scene, it acts as a territorial scientific and economic engine by combining its 4 missions - to train engineers by integrating the dynamics of sustainable development, scientific research, contributing to economic development and spreading the culture of science, technology and innovation - in a virtuous and innovative cycle.

Its positioning in terms of training and research places IMT Mines Albi as a reference school on three of the four themes of the Institut Mines-Télécom: responsible future industry, energy, circular economy and society, and engineering, health and well-being.

The doctoral position is hosted by the Industrial Engineering Center of IMT Mines Albi. The center develops research on the modelling, design, control and evaluation of industrial, logistics and socio-technical systems, with a strong emphasis on decision support, performance assessment and industrial transfer.

The PhD will be carried out in the context of a collaborative research project with Airbus. It will address the design, management and evaluation of standardized logistics assets in a complex aerospace supply chain linking suppliers, regional warehouses, marketplaces and final assembly lines across a multi-continent network.

Airbus logistics currently relies on a wide variety of packaging and logistics assets associated with different suppliers, sites and product families. These assets generate costs, handling constraints, storage needs, return flows, losses and environmental impacts. The thesis will investigate under which conditions standardized and mutualized logistics assets can reduce cost and CO2 emissions while preserving service quality, lead time, line-side availability and storage performance.

The research will use Physical Internet principles to address the standardization, modularity, mutualization and coordinated management of logistics assets. The expected contribution is a decision-support framework for designing and evaluating standardized asset portfolios and their associated closed-loop logistics strategies. During this PhD you will :

• Define the scientific scope of standardized logistics assets and transform mutualized packaging into a measurable decision object.

• Design or assess a portfolio of standardized assets by clustering part families, compatibility requirements and logistics constraints.

• Model closed-loop logistics networks connecting suppliers, regional warehouses, marketplaces and final assembly lines, including return, cleaning, repair or requalification loops when relevant.

• Dimension the circulating fleet of standardized assets under demand, lead-time, loss and damage uncertainties.

• Evaluate alternative strategies through multi-criteria decision analysis covering cost, CO2 emissions, service level, lead time, storage surface and stakeholder impacts.

• Explore governance and traceability scenarios, including collaborative and less collaborative assumptions, to assess their influence on the feasibility and benefits of mutualization.

• Build a baseline of current physical flows, asset flows, cost drivers, storage needs, return times and performance indicators.

• Develop data analytics and clustering approaches to identify candidate families for standardization and mutualization.

• Develop discrete-event simulation models to compare closed-loop asset management strategies and stress-test them under variability, peak demand, perturbations, losses and return delays.

• Integrate life-cycle management, carbon accounting and multi-criteria evaluation into the decision-support framework.

• Produce scientific publications, project deliverables, prototype models or dashboards, and recommendations for industrial deployment.

• Participate in project meetings, field interactions with Airbus, academic seminars and international conferences.

• Master's degree, engineering degree or equivalent degree in industrial engineering, supply chain management, logistics, operations research, production systems, data science, simulation, decision sciences, or a related field.

• A strong academic record and a clear motivation for doctoral research in close interaction with industrial partners.

• Knowledge of industrial engineering, supply chain management, logistics systems, simulation and decision-support methods.

• Interest in Physical Internet concepts, closed-loop logistics, reusable assets, sustainability assessment and industrial transformation.

• Initial experience with discrete-event simulation, data analysis, clustering, carbon accounting, life-cycle thinking or multi-criteria decision analysis would be appreciated.

• Programming skills in Python, R, simulation software or equivalent tools would be an asset.

• Good written and oral communication skills in English. French language skills are expected in order to have direct conversations with the field.

• Ability to structure an open industrial problem into research questions, models, hypotheses and evaluation protocols.

• Capacity to work autonomously while interacting regularly with academic and industrial partners.

• Analytical rigor, curiosity, capacity for synthesis and attention to operational relevance.

• Ability to communicate results to both scientific and industrial audiences.

• Application package: curriculum vitae, cover letter, academic transcripts, Master thesis or report if available, and contact details for references.

• Applications may be done on : June 15, 2026
  and informal enquiries may be sent to : Eva Petitdemange: eva.petitdemange@mines-albi.fr and Severine Durieux : severine.durieux@mines-albi.fr
  

• The position includes opportunities to work with Airbus, to attend international conferences, and to undertake an academic exchange at a European partner institution, depending on the progress of the thesis and project opportunities.

• Possible teaching involvement at IMT Mines Albi may be considered, depending on the candidate profile and institutional needs.