Henk Joseph Maria (Henk) Lombaers (Doorn, 1920 – 29 August 2007) was a Dutch mathematician, Professor at Delft University of Technology and a pioneer in the field of operations research in the Netherlands.[1]
Lombaers undertook teacher training, and earned a degree in mathematics. From 1945 to 1956 he was employed by the Royal Netherlands Army, where he was involved in the introduction of radar-aircraft artillery.
In 1956 he joined Koninklijke Hoogovens as an operational researcher. At Hoogovens he conducted research on the transhipment capacity of the port installations using computer simulations.[2] He also looked into the statistical aspects of simulation.[3]
In 1968 he was appointed Professor of Quantitative Aspects of Business Administration at the Technical University of Delft, where he held his inaugural address on "Voorzien en verzinnen (Forecast and making up facts). In 1985 he retired with the speech, entitled "Daar moet je maar niet te hard op rekenen" (You shouldn't count on it too much). In Delft Lombaerts was succeeded by Joop Evers, who had been Professor at the University of Twente.
The PhD students under Lombaers were Jack P.C. Kleijnen (Emeritus Professor of Simulation and Information Systems at Tilburg University (TiU), who graduated in 1971, Hendrik van der Meerendonk also in 1971, Johannes Botman in 1981, and Jaap van den Herik in 1983.