Brian Hwarng

Brian received his Ph.D. in Industrial and Management Systems Engineering from Arizona State University, USA. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Analytics and Operations (DAO) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School. Previously, he served as the Academic Director of the NUS-PKU Double Degree MBA and the S3 Asia MBA, Associate Dean for Executive Education, Co-Academic Director of the Master in Public Administration and Management (MPAM, jointly offered with the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy), and Academic Director of the Asia-Pacific Executive MBA. Before joining NUS, Brian worked as an Industrial Engineer at Delta Electronics, Taiwan, and as a Materiel Systems Analyst at Allied-Signal Aerospace in Phoenix, Arizona.
 
Trained at Harvard Business School in participant-centred learning and case method teaching, Brian is known for his interactive and engaging pedagogy. He is a key faculty member teaching Managerial Operations and Analytics (MBA) and Value Chains, Logistics, and Operations (Executive MBA – English and Chinese). In addition to various public and customised executive programmes in public administration, banking, and hospital management, he has conducted field research and provided executive and consulting services to organisations such as Jiuzhai Valley National Park, Din Tai Fung, Yamato Transport (TA-Q-BIN), Shanghai Baolong, Midea, Shunfeng Express, DHL, MediaTek, Baxter, Kerry Oils & Grains, Liugong (Guangxi), Lushang (Shandong), PSA, and SPRING Singapore, among others.
 
Brian’s current research interests include managing for quality and excellence, value creation, Deming management, the Toyota Production System, chaos and complex systems, system dynamics, and service operations. He has published in journals such as the European Journal of Operational Research, IIE Transactions, International Journal of Production Research, Interfaces, and Omega. He also served as an area editor (statistics and reliability) for the International Journal of Computers and Industrial Engineering.
 
He has been the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the Commonwealth Fellowship Award in the UK, where he was involved in global supply chain modelling for Glaxo Wellcome and a large-scale innovative technology research project for the specialty chemical industry. Together with the NUS Dentistry team, he won the 2011 JDR Williams J Gies Award. In collaboration with Dr Xuchuan Yuan, he also received the 2011 DSI (Decision Sciences Institute) Distinguished Paper Award (in Service and Manufacturing Operations Management) and the 2012 DSI Best Teaching Case Studies Award, Honorable Mention, as well as the 2015 DSI Annual Meeting Best Teaching Case Studies Award. He was a 2016 DSI Instructional Innovation Award Finalist. Through his highly recognised Expanded Funnel Experiment, endorsed by The Deming Institute, Brian advises organisations on applying the Deming System of Profound Knowledge to overcome management challenges.