 As an academic, his initial teaching, research and publishing focus was in the area of logistics, transportation, and operations management he authored (or co-authored) seven books while teaching at the University of British Columbia, Canada (1976–1978), and the Harvard Business School (1979–1985).In 1985, he left Harvard Business School to spend full-time consulting to professional firms.In 2002, he was named as one of the top 40 business thinkers in the world ("Business Minds", by Tom Brown, PrenticeHall/Financial Times).