Dr Diego Ruiz-Hern谩ndez, Senior Lecturer at 葫芦影业 University Management School is working, together with Professor Amaya Erro-Garc茅s from the Universidad P煤blica de Navarra (UPNA) and Jes煤s Mar铆a Pinar-P茅rez from CUNEF Universidad, in a University-Enterprise project in collaboration with Elkarkide, a Special Employment Centre (CEE) in Pamplona, Spain. Elkarkide鈥檚 main economic activity lies in the door-to-door delivery of brochures, publicity materials, and other leaflets in the city of Pamplona and other villages in the surrounding area.
In Spain, Special Employment Centres enjoy special taxation and financial support from local governments. The main requisite for a CEE is that at least 80% of their staff must have a disability (33% or more according to Spanish law). In the case of Elkarkide, employees with a disability make up 90% of their workforce, suffering from serious mental health problems.
The group lead by Dr Ruiz-Hern谩ndez is working on a thorough revision of Elkarkide鈥檚 distribution and publicity delivery process, expecting to attain significant increases in productivity, while considering the special characteristics of the postal workers working in Elkarkide. In the words of Marcos Resano, Elkarkide鈥檚 manager, we must "highlight the impact that this project has for our organisation鈥檚 sustainability, an impact that translates also into social impact, as Elkarkide鈥檚 purpose is the inclusion of people with serious mental illnesses."
To celebrate the first year of this project and to share the results obtained so far by the research team, on 22 November Dr Ruiz-Hern谩ndez presented the talk 鈥淒istricting and multi-operator routing problems in urban areas with replenishment stops鈥 at the UPNA. This presentation was followed by a working meeting with Elkarkide鈥檚 management team (Marcos Resano, Gonzalo Mar铆n and Ines Giron茅s). During this meeting, the interdisciplinary team revised the current state of the project and discussed the steps necessary to complete by September next year.