Profile

Professor T T Narendran graduated in Mechanical Engineering from the College of Engineering, Guindy, in 1971. He then moved to the Indian Institute of Technology Madras where he obtained his Masters' and Doctoral degrees in Industrial Engineering. He joined the faculty in 1976 and served IIT Madras for 38 years. He was the Head of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences from 2000 to 2003, Advisor, Training and Placement, IIT Madras from 2003 to 2006 and Dean, Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research, at IIT Madras from 2006 to 2009. He pioneered the introduction of the MBA programme at IIT Madras in 2001, during his tenure as the Head of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences. In 2007, he piloted the introduction of a Post-Graduate Programme for Executives for Visionary Leadership in Manufacturing (PGPEX-VLM), a joint program of IIM Calcutta, IIT Kanpur and IIT Madras. He was the coordinator of this program from 2007 to 2014. Currently, he is the President of the Case Research Society of India (CRSI) and of the Chennai Chapter of the Operational Research Society of India (ORSI).

Professor Narendran's teaching interests were primarily in the areas of Operations Research and Operations Management. He did extensive research in the areas of Cellular Manufacturing Systems and Flexible Manufacturing Systems and published several papers in leading International journals. In the last decade, he addressed a variety of logistics / routing problems and Ergonomics; he guided research on VRP, CMP, Freight-Train Scheduling, Inventory Routing Problem and Job-Scheduling based on Ergonomic considerations. In his last few years of service, he turned his attention to Green Logistics; Closed Loop Supply Chain Management and Vehicle Routing to reduce the consumption of fuel were examples of his research in this domain. He had served as guide / co-guide for 20 doctoral students during his career at IIT Madras.

Among his other interests were student-counselling, primary education and Indian Classical music. He is himself an accomplished Veena player. He did a stint as Head, Guidance and Counselling unit, IIT Madras and was the President of the Music Club, IIT until March 2015. He was the Vice-chairman of Vidyapeetam from 1995-2000. In 2000, he became the Chairman of the school.

Professor Narendran retired from IIT Madras on June 30th, 2015.

Academic Background

* Ph.D. (Industrial Engineering), IIT Madras
* M.S by Research (Industrial Engineering), IIT Madras
* B.E. (Mechanical Engineering), University of Madras