School of Business and Economics

Academics

• Dr Nicola Bateman (Senior Lecturer in Operations Management)
• Dr Donna Champion (Senior Lecturer in Information Systems)
• Dr Crispin Coombs (Senior Lecturer in Information Systems)
• Dr Samir Dani (Senior Lecturer in Operations Management)
• Professor Neil Doherty (Professor of Information Management)
• Dr Alan French (Lecturer in Quantitative Methods)
• Professor Malcolm King (Professor of Management Sciences)
• Professor Baibing Li (Professor of Business Statistics and Management Science)
• Professor Jiyin Liu (Professor of Operations Management)
• Dr Grammatoula Papaioannou (Lecturer in Business Statistics)
• Dr Rupal Rana (Lecturer in Management Science)
• Professor Stewart Robinson (Professor of Management Science)
• Dr Antuela Tako (Lecturer in Operations Research)
• Clive Trusson (Teaching Fellow in Information Systems)
  
• Dr Lili Yang (Reader of Information Systems & Emergency Management)

Associated Members

• Mr Tony Brine (University Teacher in Business Statistics)
• Dr Dave Coates (Lecturer in Business Statistics)

Researchers

• Dr Irina Neaga (Research Associate)

Visiting Academics

Visiting Professors

• Professor Ahmad Abdollahzebeh, Amirkabir University of Technology, Iran
  
• Professor Kalle Lyytinen, Iris S Wolstein Professor, Case Western Reserve University, United States
• Professor Colette Rolland, Department of Informatics and mathematics, University of Paris Pantheon – Sorbonne, France
• Professor William Welch, Head of Department of Statistics, University of British Columbia, Canada.

Information Management/Information Systems

In today’s fast changing business environment, managers need to be aware of how best to harness information systems to enable them make better decisions, to organise work systems in ways that were never before possible and to introduce innovative applications that could ultimately give added value to their business.

Research topics that are currently being pursued are:

Benefits Realization Management

Principle investigators: Dr Crispin R. Coombs and Professor Neil F. Doherty
Many organizations fail to achieve the intended benefits from their IS/IT investments. While there are many theoretical prescriptions as to how planned benefits may be realized from IS/IT investments, there is very little empirical evidence as to how such advice is being followed in practice. Our research addresses this gap through a series of projects examining different aspects of the benefits management process, both during and post implementation.

Navigating the Gap

Principle investigator: Dr Donna Champion
Research is carried out on the development of new models and tools to overcome the language barrier that exists between business managers and technologists. Tools need to be sufficiently robust in order to support systems development in settings that are both multi-disciplinary and multi-agency and also to support different modes of research, diverse theories and perspectives. The practical rewards can be great, offering contributions that are beyond the scope of a single discipline or field of research.

Systems and Emergency Management

Principle investigator: Dr Lili Yang
Responding to natural or man-made disasters in a timely and effectively manner can reduce deaths and injuries, prevent a secondary disaster, and reduce the resulting economic losses and social disruption. Developing an information management system integrating static and dynamic information for the first responders on site would be desirable at present. Our research focuses on requirements gathering, information retrieving, and presentation design in emergency response system development. The outcomes have been published in many quality journals.

Alongside these primary research themes, members of the group also carry out empirical research in complementary fields such as:

• e-commerce
• enterprise systems
• information security
• health informatics
• risk management
• business process re-engineering

Projects: Benefits Realization Management

Benefits realization from ERP systems: The role of customization
Crispin Coombs, Neil Doherty, Usman Aslam 2010 – 2013
Funded by: School of Business and Economics

One recommended approach to improve the likelihood of ERP system success and thereby delivery of benefits, is to avoid package customization. However, it appears that implementing a truly ‘vanilla’ system, although desirable, is rarely achieved. Research that explores the relationship between ERP system customization and benefits realization is lacking. This study helps to fill this gap using an existing benefits management framework and explicitly examining the role of customization in ERP projects.

An assessment of the Benefits Dependency Network as a post-hoc evaluation tool
Crispin Coombs, Mazer Hussain 2009 – 2011

Previous studies have recommended formal benefits realization approaches to improve the outcomes of systems development projects through proactive management of organizational change. However, benefits are often only considered during the initial business case and many IS/IT projects end with the project being technically completed, but with benefits lacking. This study examined a recently completed under-performing information system using an existing benefits framework: the Benefits Dependency Network (BDN). The study critiqued the BDN as post-hoc evaluation tool and demonstrated that the BDN provides valuable insights to explain why planned benefits are not realized.

A benefit focused approach to develop a NHS Trust clinical trials support system
Neil Doherty, Crispin Coombs, Ron Summers, Mark Hepworth, Nilesh Dudhal, Hiten Vyas 2006 – 2008
Funded by: University Hospitals of Leicester and Department of Business Innovation and Skills

The aim of our research project was to develop a purpose-built clinical trials support system [CTSS], which would be sufficiently comprehensive, integrated and flexible, so as to support the vast majority of research studies that were to be managed and conducted by one UK-based health authority. It was agreed at the project’s outset that an explicit benefits’ realization approach should be integrated into the system’s development activity. The project provided new insights into the integration of benefits realization and structured development tools and practices: we describe how the benefits dependency network has been successfully related to use case diagrams.

Outputs: Doherty, N.F., Dudhal, N., Coombs, C.R., Summers, R., Vyas, H., Hepworth, M. and Kettle, E., ''Towards an Integrated Approach to Benefits Realization Management - Reflections from the Development of a Clinical Trials Support System'', The Electronic Journal Information Systems Evaluation, 11(2), April 2008, pp 83-90 http://issuu.com/academic-conferences.org/docs/ejise-volume11-issue2-article723

Business transformation and benefits realization through information systems
Neil Doherty, Colin Ashurst, Joe Peppard 2002 – 2007

This project provided a fresh perspective on the challenges of benefit realization from IT. It explored how to build the organizational capability to realize the strategic potential of information technology. It is sought to tackle the gap between theory and practice and explore how to gain wider adoption of successful socio-technical and benefits-driven approaches to investments in IT.

Outputs: Ashurst, C., Doherty, N.F. and Peppard, J., ''Improving the Impact of IT Development Projects: The Benefits Realization Capability Model'', European Journal of Information Systems, 17, 2008, pp 352-370 http://hdl.handle.net/2134/8182

Doherty, N.F., Ashurst C. and Peppard, J. “Factors affecting the successful realization of benefits from systems development projects: findings from three case studies” Journal of Information Technology (2012) 27, 1–16 http://hdl.handle.net/2134/9404

Ashurst, C. (2011) Benefits Realization from Information Technology, Palgrave Macmillan.

Projects: Navigating the Gap

Embedding Systems Engineering in Jaguar Land Rover
Dr Donna Champion 2011-2012
Funded by: Jaguar Land Rover
Value: £36,000

This research project is developing new frameworks and tools to address the business challenges associated with implementing the new future state and the associated Systems Engineering principles across the Electrical Departments in Jaguar Land Rover.

Developing new measures of organizational resilience
Shi Tang, Dr Donna Champion Dr Nicola Bateman
Funded by: School of Business and Economics

This research is focusing on systems approaches to resilience with an emphasis on systems engineering and managing large, multi-discipline teams.

Bridging the Gap -Enabling a strategic and long lasting alliance between academic research staff at Loughborough University
Principal Investigator: Professor R. Kalawsky Co Investigators: Dr D. Champion, Dr J.P. Ward, Dr E. Edirisinghe, Professor R. Summers 2006-2010
Funded by: EPSRC Grant Number: EP/E018521/1
Value: £194,280

This project built a new network between academic research staff from across the domains of mathematical sciences, information and communication technology, and engineering at Loughborough University. The project has provided a platform for interdisciplinary based research projects and resulted in a collaborative research environment between academics and industrial partners.

Projects: Systems and Emergency Management

Secure Adhoc Fire & Emergency Safety Network (SafetyNet)
Lili Yang 2006 - 2011
Main industrial collaborators: Derbyshire Fire and Rescue service, DCSI, Jennic, SURE Technology, ARQIVA, and Association for Fire Protection.
Sponsor: Technology Strategy Board (£1.2 million)

Multi-objective optimisation and trade-off analysis for large-scale systems architecture design
Lili Yang 2007 - 2012
Sponsor: EPSRC and BAE Systems (£85,000)

Integrating security technologies and organisational culture for employee risk assessment (ERA)
Lili Yang, Malcolm King, 2007 - 2008
Sponsor: Technology Strategy Board (£135,000)

Information management in responding to crises and unexpected events
Lili Yang, Tsinghua University, 2007 - 2008
Sponsor: British Council

Emergency Management, Collaborating with Tsinghua University, China.
Lili Yang, Tsinghua University, 2011-2012
Sponsor: Santander Marco Polo Programme ($10,000)

Outputs:
Yang, L., Su, G., Yuan, H., ‘Design principles of integrated information platform for emergency responses: the Case of 2008 Beijing Olympic Games’, Information Systems Research, Articles in Advance, pp. 1–26, ISSN: 1047-7047, EISSN: 1526-5536.

Yang, L., Prasanna, R. and King, M., ''On-Site Information Systems Design for Emergency First Responders'', Journal of Information Technology Theory and Application, 10(1), 2009, pp 5-27.

Tan, W., Li, L., Xu W., Yang .F, Jiang C., Yang, L., and Choi J., ‘A role-oriented service system architecture for enterprise process collaboration’, Computers and Operations Research, Vol. 39, Issue 8, pp. 1893-1900, 2012, ISSN: 0305-0548.

Yang, H., Yang, L., and Yang, S., ‘Hybrid zigbee RFID sensor network for humanitarian logistics centre management’, Submitted to International Journal of Human & Computer Studies.

Prasanna, R., Yang, L., and King, M., ‘GDIA: an approach for capturing information requirements for emergency first responders’, submitted to MIS Quarterly.

Management Science/Operational Research

Management Science/Operational Research emphasizes the development and application of appropriate analytical techniques to help make better decisions. Our research in this area covers a wide range of topics from studies of well-known standard problems to practical applications in business, manufacturing, agriculture, transportation and public services. The various research topics involve techniques such as mathematical programming, statistical analysis and forecasting, multi-criteria decision making, simulation, heuristics, etc. Our work in this broad area links naturally with that in the other two areas. In making operations management decisions, for example, MS/OR models are often applied with effective use of information system and data support.

Listed below are the main topics of our current research in this area:

Business modelling and optimisation

Business modelling is critical in applying management science/operational research techniques to help improving system operations and resource utilisation in organisations. It involves observing the system operations, collecting data, identifying restrictions and performance measures, formulating the decision problems as mathematical models. Our research includes modelling decision problems in business applications and developing / using optimisation and heuristic methods to find solutions of these models.

Decision making and support

Decision making is at the heart of organisations. In increasingly competitive global markets, accurate and efficient decision making has become more important than ever before. Firms and individuals face complex decision problems with both qualitative and quantitative criteria under various uncertainties and risks. Our research aims to help organisations and individuals make better decisions by structuring such complex decision problems and developing appropriate decision support systems.

 

Statistical analysis and forecasting

Statistical data analysis involves data collection and data processing. The former includes aspects such as questionnaire design and conducting surveys, whilst the latter includes estimation of the values of parameters that affect problems in business analysis, and testing hypotheses about these population parameters. The estimates of the parameters are used to develop mathematical models, upon which business forecasting can be made. Accurate forecasting forms the basis of decision-making.

Lean Operations in China

This research conducted by Dr Marc Bollbach investigates the barriers to implementing lean operations in China. Using a sociotechnical systems perspective the interplay between Chinese national context factors and their impact on technical implementation of lean are examined.  The research builds a model, based on extensive interviews, that relates eight national context factors such as “worker demographics” to six implementation barriers such as “high employee turnover”.  This research is a joint activity between  Management of Information, Decisions and Operations group (Dr Nicola Bateman) and  International Business, Strategy and Innovation group (Dr Angelika Zimmermann).

Operations Management

It is important for all organisations to effectively manage their resources and activities in the process of providing their products and services. Our group’s research in the operations management area includes both qualitative and quantitative studies helping business and industrial organisations to improve their operations and decision making. Our current research activities focus on the following themes:

Lean operations and sustainability of continuous improvement

In particular research into performance measurement and visual management to provide a shared vision and improve decision making. This is focusing on the use of communication boards as a communication tool and focus for team based improvement.

Planning and scheduling of logistics operations

This line of research is especially concerned with optimising the flow (movement and storage operations) of materials/freight in logistics and production systems. This involves development of models and algorithms and the application of information from the operations

Supply Chain and Operations Management

Current projects in this area range from managing supply chain risks in the food sector, investigating maritime logistics chains, investigating the impact of supply chains on whole life asset management, exploring next generation supply chains. For more information: http://www-staff.lboro.ac.uk/~ensd/research_projects.htm

Other topics in this area also include: next generation supply chains, supply chain innovation,  human issues in supply chains, knowledge Management, new business models

Projects

• Visual Management and Decision Making
• Logistics scheduling with movement track constraints
• Assignment of storage locations to containers in a container stack
• Multi-hoist scheduling in electroplating lines

• Other Supply Chain Projects

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Visual Management and Decision Making

Dr. Nicola Bateman

Visual management is about making the work place more visual so that people can ‘maintain the current condition’ and ‘improve the current condition’. This research has several elements including exploring the best format for ‘communications boards’ and developing visual tools for the academic environment. This later element is in conjunction with the Lean Enterprise Research centre at Cardiff University and the outputs include guidelines for the design of visual materials to aid decision making.

Preliminary outputs include Nicola Bateman, Mark Francis and Sarah Lethbridge (2007) Visual Management for an Academic Research Centre British Academy of Management Conference September Warwick University.

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Logistics scheduling with movement track constraints

Professor Jiyin Liu

Main collaborator: Professor Lixin Tang, Director, The Logistics Institute, Northeaster University, China.

Supported by “Collaborative Research Grant for Overseas Young Scholars”, National Natural Science Foundation, China (RMB400,000).

In this project we study a class of scheduling problems that widely exist in logistics systems. In these systems, transport/handling resources have various tasks to perform, but they move on a common track and cannot cross each other. The efficiency of such systems depends heavily on the effective scheduling of their operations. We investigate a number of typical resource scheduling problems in such systems and develop modelling, analysis and solution techniques for these problems.

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Assignment of storage locations to containers in a container stack

Professor Jiyin Liu

Main collaborator: Professor Yat-wah Wan, Director, Graduate Institute of Global Operations Strategy and Logistics Management, National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan.

At container port terminals, containers discharged from vessels and containers to be loaded onto vessels need to be temporarily stacked in the container yard. When retrieving a container not on top of a stack, those above it have to be reshuffled to other locations. In this project we develop a mathematical programming model for assigning storage locations to containers so that the unproductive reshuffles can be reduced. Heuristics based on the model are then derived for both static and dynamic cases.

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Multi-hoist scheduling in electroplating lines

Professor Jiyin Liu

Collaborator: Dr Yun Jiang, Department of Industrial Engineering, Bilkent University, Turkey.

Automated electroplating lines are common facilities for processing products such as printed circuit boards. Hoists are used to move the products between the processing tanks in these lines. In this project we study the problem of scheduling the hoists to perform the move tasks to maximize productivity. For special cases we analyse the problem and develop efficient optimal algorithms. The analysis also leads to a new mathematical model for the general problem. An efficient branch and bound algorithm is then developed to solve it.

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Other Supply Chain Projects

Developing a Supply Chain Risk methodology using the Scenario Planning approach

October 2008 to September 2010
Principal Investigator: Dr. S. Dani
Researchers: Aman Deep
Sponsor: EPSRC

NIMBLE practices in organizations: kNowledge for Improvement and Moving Beyond Lean Enterprise

July 2009  to June 2011
Principal Investigator: Prof. Chris Backhouse
Co- Investigators: Dr. Sue Morton, Prof. Neill Burns, Dr. Samir Dani
Sponsor: EPSRC/ IMCRC

INTERACT Call 5: Building Links with India in the field of “The Digital Economy”-Next Generation Manufacturing Supply Chains and Digital Economy Research Collaboration (NEX-GEMS)

February 2008 to January 2010
Principal Investigator: Prof. Lalwani (Hull Business School)
Other Partners: UK universities (Hull, Cardiff, Nottingham and Brunel) and Indian universities (IIM-Bangalore, IIM- Calcutta, IIT- Bombay and IIT- Kharagpur).
Sponsor: EPSRC

Knowledge Transfer Partnership- “To Develop an integrated business management system to support the processing of orders from sales and quotations, to work order generation and shop-floor scheduling

July 2006 to June 2008
Principal Investigator: Dr. S. Dani
Co- Investigator: Prof. Neil Burns
Researchers: Aman Deep
Sponsor: UK- Technology Strategy Board

Developing a proactive methodology to reduce lead times and risks in the India-UK maritime logistics chain

EPSRC/ CICE EngD studentship
October 2007 to September 2011
Principal Investigator: Dr. S. Dani
Co- Investigator: Prof. Neil Burns
Researchers: Ravindra Galhena
Sponsor: EPSRC

Optimisation of railway vehicle operation and maintenance to maximise whole life value

EPSRC/ SEDC EngD studentship
October 2007 to September 2011
Principal Investigator: Prof. Chris Backhouse
Co- Investigator: Dr. Samir Dani
Researchers: Richard Clayton
Sponsor: EPSRC

Self- Assessing Innovation

EPSRC/ IPGC short project
November 2008 to June 2009
Principal Investigator: Dr. Samir Dani
Co- Investigator: Prof. Neil Burns, Dr. Ran Bhamra
Researchers: Jane Glover
Sponsor: EPSRC

Creation of a business plan for UK Electric Vehicle (EV) Development Centre in the East Midlands

March 2009 to February 2010
Principal Investigator: Prof. Chris Backhouse
Co- Investigator: Dr. Samir Dani, Dr. Kathryn Walsh
Researchers: Graham Jackson
Sponsor: EMDA/ Loughborough University/ CENEX

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International Activities

Professor Jiyin Liu is a visiting professor at Northeastern University, China, (2005 – present).

Conferences

Chair of International Committees

Dr Lili Yang has been the Web chair of the IEEE International Conference on Networking, Sensing, and Control (IEEE - ICNSC07), London, UK, 15-17 April, 2007

Dr Lili Yang was Co-chair of the 12th CACSUK Automation & Computing Conference, Loughborough, UK, 14-15 September, 2006

Journal Editorships

Dr Lili Yang is the guest editor for the special issue on ’Emergency response at the 2008 Bejing Olympic Games’ for the International Journal of Measurement & Control. Vol. 42/9 November 2009, ISSN 0020-2940

Professor Jiyin Liu is a member of the editorial board for the “Journal of Chinese Institute of Industrial Engineers” (2007 – present), [ISSN: 1017-0669],

Dr Lili Yang is a member of the editorial board for “The Open Cybernetics and Systemics Journal” (2007 – present), [ISSN: 1874-110X]

Dr Samir Dani is the guest editor for the special issue on ’Managing the Uncertainty and Risks in Supply Chains: The Agility Paradigm’ for the International Journal of Agile Systems and Management. (Vol. 3, No-3-4, 2008) (ISSN: 1741-9174).

Dr Samir Dani is the guest editor for the special issue on ‘Creating Resilient SMEs’ for the International Journal of Production Research (ISSN: 0020-7543).

Awards

Professor Jiyin Liu was a finalist for the 2004 Franz Edelman Finalist Award from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFMORS).

Dr Samir Dani has received the A M Strickland Prize (2006) awarded by the IMechE’s Manufacturing Industries Division for the “Best Paper” published in the Journal of Engineering Manufacture.

Dr Samir Dani has received the 2006 Donald Julius Groen Prize awarded by the IMechE’s Management Group for the “Best Paper” published in the Journal of Engineering Manufacture.

Current PhD Students

Information Systems Area

Usman Aslam
Topic: The Interpretive Flexibility of ERP systems and the Impact on Benefits Realisation

Mumin Abubakre
Topic: The Role of Nigerian Banks in the diffusion of E-Payment Systems in Business to Government (B2G) activities

Martin Gubler (part-time)
Topic: Career orientations in IT – How protean and boundaryless are they?

Weiwei He
Topic: Data fusion for emergency response management

Bang Li
Topic: The impact of western designed ERP software on Chinese organisational culture

Thomas Peschken
Topic: Information systems in SMEs: a travel industry perspective

Raj Presanna
Topic: Integrating security technologies and organisational culture for Employee Risk Assessment (ERA)

Komaldeep Purewal
Topic: Multi-objective optimisation and trade-off analysis for large scale systems architecture design

S.A. Sabeeh
Topic: An investigation of a strategic process during the implementation of BASEL II in the banking sector: a knowledge-based perspective

Khalid Shaikh
Topic: Warehouse Fires: A Model For Capturing Decision Making Process

Adam Smith
Topic: Strategic management in the NHS – A service quality improvement?

Amy Tan
Topic: An efficient customer relationship management solution for a small medium enterprise operation in an international environment.

Bin Wang
Topic: An analysis of the ICT impact on productivity growth in EU

Operations Management Area

Eko Setiawan
Topic: Optimisation of relief distribution and victim evacuation after natural disaster occurrences

Ravindra Galhena
Topic: Developing a proactive methodology to reduce lead times and risks in the India-UK maritime logistics chain

Abhijeet Ghadge
Topic: Managing Supply Chain Risks using System Dynamics Modeling for Manufacturing Industry.

Handrik Lamsali
Topic: Product return and recovery decisions with capacity considerations

Asma Qureshi
Topic: A comparison of quality of service between MBA's in Pakistan and UK

Shaikh, K
Topic: Warehouse Fires: A Model For Capturing Decision Making Process

Zheng Tong
Topic: A study on the berth allocation problem at container terminals

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Martin Gubler (part-time)
Topic: Career orientations in IT – How protean and boundaryless are they?
Supervisor: Professor John Arnold and Crispin Coombs
Start date: 2006
Expected completion date: 2011

Summary: Information Technology (IT) professionals in most organisations are expected to manage their own careers and to be proactive with regards to their personal and professional development. Yet, little is known about career orientations of IT professionals and how those orientations impact individual career behaviour or employers’ career management activities. Based on a new conceptual approach, this research project examines the extent to which IT professionals display protean and/or boundaryless career orientations and the influence of these orientations on carer management activities in IT organisations.

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Weiwei He
Topic: Data fusion for emergency response management
Supervisor: Professor S H Yang and Dr. Lili Yang
Start date: December 2009
Expected completion date: December 2012

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Bang Li
Topic: The impact of western designed ERP software on Chinese organisational culture
Supervisor: Professor Malcolm King and Dr Donna Champion
Start date: April 2006
Expected completion date: April 2009

Summary: This research study is using a field study to investigate the importance of national culture in Chinese companies that use ERP systems. This research project involves revisiting and updating Hoftede’s well known work on national culture and also developing a practical framework that will be of value to managers in business when implementing new ERP systems in Chinese contexts.

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Thomas Peschken
Topic: Information systems in SMEs: a travel industry perspective
Supervisor: Professor Neil Doherty and Dr Donna Champion
Start date: January 2008
Expected completion date: January 2011

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Raj Presanna
Topic: Integrating security technologies and organisational culture for Employee Risk Assessment (ERA)
Supervisor: Professor Malcolm King and Dr Lili Yang
Start date: April 2007
Expected completion date: April 2010

Summary: This project aims to develop and demonstrate a novel approach of information retrieving, information presentation, and information management for emergency response systems. A demonstration system will be built as part of the project. The project is part of an on-going project collaborating with several industries and funded by industries and DTI.

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Komaldeep Purewal
Topic: Multi-objective optimisation and trade-off analysis for large scale systems architecture design
Supervisor: Dr Lili Yang
Start date: December 2007
Expected completion date: December 2010

Summary: This project aims to develop a stochastic approach that is potentially adaptable to assessing the effectiveness of a system/software design relative to its conflicting drivers such as safety, performance, maintainability etc. This approach can be applied to a range of distributed, real time large scale systems in BAE Systems, with tool support for more practical applications. Consideration will be given to how best to integrate the resulting approach and tool support into BAE System’s process and design modelling environments/toolsets.

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Asma Qureshi
Topic: A comparison of Service-Quality between MBA's in Pakistan and UK
Supervisors: Dr Nicola Bateman and Professor Neil Doherty
Start date: 2009
Expected completion date: 2012

Summary: Service-quality is an established concept which has been well adopted by practitioners in private sector. In order to gain operational efficiency and effectiveness in public sector; it is timely for academia to apply service-quality concepts into the higher education. The complex nature of service-quality concept and multiple stake-holders issues allows researchers to further study into performance measurement of business schools from service-quality perspective.

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Khalid Shaikh
Topic: Warehouse Fires: A Model For Capturing Decision Making Process
Supervisor: Professor Malcolm King and Dr. Lili Yang
Start date: April 2007
Expected completion date: April 2010

Summary: The project is aimed at developing a model that can facilitate capturing the decision making process that incident commanders have followed during the time pressured firefighting operations. The warehouse fires are selected to provide an area to discover what cognitive processes constitute such decision making. The model will be made as general as possible so that the same model can be applied for other firefighting scenarios such as large building fires, etc. The model can help the fire and rescue service to learn from the experiences of their incident commanders.

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S.A. Sabeeh
Topic: An investigation of a strategic change process during the implementation of BASEL II in the banking sector: a knowledge-based perspective
Supervisor: Dr Crispin Coombs and Dr Donald Hislop
Start date: October 2006
Expected completion date: October 2009

Summary: This research work aims to explore the interplay between power and knowledge expressed through Foucault’s concept of a “regime of truth” during the implementation of a large inter-organisational change process across the banking industry. This work will result in theoretical insights into the role of power in inter-organisational settings and also practical suggestions for undertaking knowledge transfer and knowledge sharing during the implementation of new legislation.

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Adam Smith
Topic: Strategic management in the NHS – A service quality improvement?
Supervisor: Dr Crispin Coombs and Dr Paul Hughes
Start date: December 2006
Expected completion date: December 2009

Summary: Increasingly challenged by public demand, the NHS has come under recent pressure to improve its services. Similarly, quality of service, although good by international standards, is inconsistent and according to critics, has experienced a general disorientation. With the failure of previous management and business excellence models to address this problem, the study aims to introduce a new theory and model into an NHS trust that could help to improve its general performance and quality of service.

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Amy Tan
Topic: An efficient customer relationship management solution for a small medium enterprise operation in an international environment.
Supervisor: Dr. Lili Yang
Start date: December 2009
Expected completion date: December 2012

Bin Wang
Topic: An analysis of the ICT impact on productivity growth in EU
Supervisor: Professor Baibing Li and Dr Hailin Liao (Dept. of Economics)
Start date: December 2005
Expected completion date: July 2009

Summary: The ICT (information and technology) impact on productivity growth in EU is investigated in this study. The ICT impact on productivity growth is broken down into several different sources, including technical efficiency change (TEC), input change and technological progress (TP). Empirical analysis is carried out using Bayesian analysis to address some important issues from the perspective of ICT impact, such as why the productivity growth of EU lags behind USA and divergence productivity growth within EU members.

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Eko Setiawan
Topic: Optimisation of relief distribution and victim evacuation after natural disaster occurrences
Supervisor: Professor Jiyin Liu and Dr Alan French
Start date: October 2008
Expected completion date: October 2011

Summary: This research studies the problems of distributing relieves and evacuating victims following a sudden-onset natural disaster occurrence; and model and optimise the site locations for temporary shelters and/or temporary emergency centres, relief distribution and evacuation operations.

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Handrik Lamsali
Topic: Product return and recovery decisions with capacity considerations
Supervisor: Professor Jiyin Liu
Start date: October 2006
Expected completion date: September 2010

Summary: The purpose of this study is to develop mathematical models to optimize the selections of product recovery methods and product return channels and capacity decisions within the reverse logistics context. With the incorporation of practical issues into the model such as the uncertainties factors, capacity limitation and shared-decision making between reverse logistics chain members, this study is expected to contribute in both academic and practical sense.

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Shaikh, K
Topic: Warehouse Fires: A Model For Capturing Decision Making Process
Supervisor: Dr. Lili Yang

Summary: The project is aimed at developing a model that can facilitate
capturing the decision making process that incident commanders have followed
during time pressured firefighting operations. The warehouse fires are
selected to provide an area to discover what cognitive processes constitute
such decision making. The model will be made as general as possible so that
the same model can be applied for other firefighting scenarios such as large
building fires, etc. The model can help the fire and rescue service to learn
from the experiences of their incident commanders.

Zheng Tong
Topic: A study on the berth allocation problem at container terminals
Supervisor: Professor Jiyin Liu
Start date: October 2006
Expected completion date: September 2010

Summary: The research focuses on the optimisation of berth operations planning at container terminals. It was motivated by the fact that inefficient utility of berth resource have lead to serious delay of shipping time in many container terminals. An integer programming model is built and heuristics will be developed to solve the problem.

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Ravindra Galhena
Topic: Developing a proactive methodology to reduce lead times and risks in the India-UK maritime logistics chain

Supervisors: Dr Samir Dani and Professor Neil Burns (The Wolfson School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering)
Start date: October 2007
Expected Completion Date: September 2011

Summary: This project will delve on studying the logistics chain from 'Factory-Port' for Indian companies exporting to the UK and 'Port- Retail sector' for UK retail companies (viz. Tesco, etc.) who will be setting up shop in India. The focus will be on developing recommendations and a methodology to reduce lead-times at the 3PL- Port interface and along the logistics chain from the factory to the ports. This entails the study of various factors viz. transport infrastructure, security, IT systems, RFID tracking systems etc. to enable solutions and also to benchmark Indian operations with current UK practices.

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Recent PhD graduates

Grammatoula Papaioannou
Topic: Integer programming and heuristic methods for the cell-formation problem with part-machine sequencing
Leitao Wang
Topic: The impact of ERP deployment upon organizational structure: a mixed method study of Chinese practices
Andrew Woodcock
Topic: Solving the generalized assignment problem (GAP): a hybrid tabu search/branch and bound algorithm

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Grammatoula Papaioannou
Topic: Integer programming and heuristic methods for the cell-formation problem with part-machine sequencing
Supervisor: Professor John Wilson
Completion date: December 2007

Summary: This work presents extensions of an integer programming (IP) model where part-machine assignment and cell-formation are addressed simultaneously, and integration of inter-cell movements of parts and machine set-up costs within the objective function are examined together with the inclusion of the part-machine operation sequence. Fuzzy set theory is used to develop a solution approach to stochastic aspects of the problem and a second approach using tabu search is employed on deterministic problems.

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Leitao Wang
Topic: The impact of ERP deployment upon organizational structure: a mixed method study of Chinese practices
Supervisor: Professor Neil Doherty and Dr Donna Champion
Completion date: May 2008

Summary: This research project examines the relationship between strategy and IT implementation in China. It also identifies practical implications for managers working to gain benefits from ERP systems in the fast growing Chinese economic climate.

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Andrew Woodcock
Topic: Solving the generalized assignment problem (GAP): a hybrid tabu search/branch and bound algorithm
Supervisor: Professor John Wilson
Completion date: December 2007

Summary: A new approach for GAP has been developed in this research. This approach uses XPRESS-MP as a branch and bound solver in order to solve sub-problems that are generated by a tabu search guiding heuristic. Tabu search makes use of memory structures that record information about attributes of solutions visited during the search. This information is used to guide the search and in the case of the hybrid algorithm to generate the sub-problems to be passed to the solver. The algorithm has been implemented and tested on benchmark problem instances that are extremely challenging.

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Thinking of doing a PhD?

If you would like to join our team of PhD research students and explore a particular area of research in more detail why not apply for a MPhil or PhD ?

Members of the group welcome PhD ideas that are relevant to their research interests. In addition to them a list of PhD topics on which members of the group are currently seeking research students are listed below. For more information please contact the relevant member of staff.

• Visual management and its use in Continuous Improvement (kaizen), performance measurement and communication of strategy.
  Contact: Dr Nicola Bateman
• Client led information system design. Bridging the gap between business needs and technology support.
  Contact: Dr Donna Champion
  
• Investigations into developing tools and methods to overcome the language barriers in multi agency and multi disciplinary settings.
  Contact: Dr Donna Champion
• Project ideas where participative field methods such as Action Research or Collaborative Practice are used.
  Contact: Dr Donna Champion
• Exploring the interpretive flexibility of information systems
  Summary: The project intends to build on previous work to further examine the concept of interpretive flexibility – the capacity of a specific technology to sustain divergent opinions (such as being seen as a route to either controlling or empowering people).
  Contact: Dr Crispin Coombs, Professor Neil Doherty
• Measuring brand equity: A consumer-oriented approach.
  Summary: This project seeks to develop and extend existing tools to both produce and then analyse mental maps for brands.
  Contact: Dr Alan French
• Research in the area of modelling, analysis and optimization of industrial, business and service operations.
  Contact: Professor Jiyin Liu

Doctoral students join a lively and supportive community of research students, becoming an integral part of the School’s research culture. As a research student, you will be encouraged to attend conferences to present your work and develop joint publications with your supervisors. These activities are partially supported by a dedicated fund, open to all research students on a one-year basis.

For an online application form click here
and for full details of the Business School PhD programme click here