I am an Associate Professor of Business Analytics at Southampton Business School, the University of Southampton and a member of the Centre for Operational Research, Management Sciences and Information Systems (CORMSIS). In my professional community, I am serving as an associate editor of the Journal of Simulation, a General Council member of The OR Society and the chair of The OR Society’s Special Interest Group in Simulation. In terms of teaching, I am a Senior Fellow of the Advance HE (formerly, Higher Education Academy) and serving as the external examiner at the University of Bath School of Management for MSc programmes in the School of Management and the MRes in Management element on the Integrated PhD.
If you are looking for my business web page, please follow this link and my social media accounts: LinkedIn, Google scholar, Research Gate, Twitter
Research
My research interests lie in the areas of simulation and its interface with other Analytics methods. I am particularly interested in simulation modelling methodology (symbiotic simulation, hybrid modelling, agent-based simulation, discrete-event simulation, simulation optimisation) with applications in supply chain management, operations management and health and social care.
I am an investigator in the following research projects:
- Principal Investigator: Designing a resilient relief supply network for natural disasters in West Java Indonesia using optimisation-via-simulation (Relief-OpS), funded by the EPSRC (ref: EP/T00360X/1), worth £305,088, 2019-2021.
- Co-Investigator: Improving Community Resilience and Sustainability Through Operational Research Capacity Building in Southeast Asia (CREST-OR), funded by the EPSRC (ref: EP/T004002/1), worth £265,127, 2020-2021.
- International partner: Efficient & Sustainable Transport Systems in Smart Cities: Internet of Things, Transport Analytics, and Agile Algorithms (TransAnalytics), funded by Spanish Ministry of Science (PID2019-111100RB-C21), worth €200,000, 2020-2023.
My selected publications since 2018 are:
Symbiotic simulation
- Combining Symbiotic Simulation Systems with Enterprise Data Storage Systems for Real-Time Decision Making (Enterprise Information Systems 2020)
- Symbiotic Simulation for the Operational Management of Inpatient Beds: Model Development and Validation using Δ-Method (Health Care Management Science 2020)
- Symbiotic Simulation for Industry 4.0’, In Simulation for Industry 4.0: Past, Present and Future. Springer Series in Advanced Manufacturing.
- Symbiotic Simulation: Hybrid Systems Model Meets Big Data Analytics (Proceedings of the 2018 Winter Simulation Conference)
- Airline Disruption Recovery using Symbiotic Simulation and Multi-Fidelity Modelling – (Proceedings of the 2018 Operational Research Society’s Simulation Workshop (SW18), pp. 146-155).
Simulation optimisation
- Agri-Food Supply Chains with Stochastic Demands: a Multi-Period Inventory Routing Problem with Perishable Products (Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory)
- Inventory-Routing Problem with Stochastic Demand and Stock-out: A Solution and Risk Analysis using Simheuristic (Proceedings of the 2019 Winter Simulation Conference)
- Optimising the Barrier Coverage of a Wireless Sensor Network with Hub-and-Spoke Topology using Mathematical and Simulation Models (Computers & Operations Research 2019)
- Agent-Based Simheuristics: Extending Simulation-Optimization Algorithms via Distributed and Parallel Computing (Proceedings of the 2018 Winter Simulation Conference)
- Multi-fidelity Simulation Optimisation for Airline Disruption Management (Proceedings of the 2018 Winter Simulation Conference)
Simulation Modelling and Applications
- How simulation modelling can help reduce the impact of COVID-19 (Journal of Simulation, 2020)
- Eliciting Agents’ Behaviour using Scenario-Based Questionnaire in Agent-Based Dairy Supply Chain Simulation (Journal of Simulation, 2020)
- Credible Agent-Based Simulation – An Illusion or Only a Step Away? (Proceedings of the 2019 Winter Simulation Conference)
- Strengthening the Reporting of Empirical Simulation Studies: Introducing the STRESS guidelines – (JOS 2019)
- Applications of Agent-Based Simulation in the Agri-Food Supply Chains – (EJOR 2018, 269 (3):794-805)
- A BPMN Extension to Support Discrete-Event Simulation for Healthcare Applications: An Explicit Representation of Queues, Attributes and Data-Driven Decision Points – (JORS 2018, 69(5):788-802)
PhD supervision interests
Currently, I am supervising/co-supervising the following PhD students
- Gu Yunfei (Southampton, 2019 – present) is working on sustainable tourism and strategic analytics, co-supervised by Professor Martin Kunc and Dr Steffen Bayer, funded by Chinese Scholarship Council and University of Southampton.
- Cao Yiyun (Southampton, 2019 – present) is working on real-time simulation optimisation of a manufacturing production line, co-supervised by Dr Christine Currie, funded by Ford Motor Company and University of Southampton.
- Mohammed Al-Mhdawi (Southampton, 2020 – present) is working on risk analysis and simulation in construction project management, co-supervised by Dr Mario Brito.
- Alex Heib (Southampton, 2020 – present) will work on real-time simulation optimisation application in a hospital, co-supervised by Dr. Chrsitine Currie and Dr Honora Smith, funded by the EPSRC.
- Lidia Mayangsari (Southampton, plan to start in 2021) will work on behavioural analytics and food supply chain, co-supervised by Dr Konstantinos Katsikopoulos, funded by LPDP Indonesia (Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education).
- Sana Ashraf (Southampton, plan to start in 2021) will work on mentalh health and hybrid modelling, co-supervised by Dr Steffen Bayer.
- Dhany Esperanza (Universitas Padjadjaran) is developing a model for The Collaboration between Actors in Sustainable Staple Food Supply Chain, co-supervised by Dr Tomy Perdana (Universitas Padjadjaran) and Dr Andre Daud (Universitas Padjadjaran).
- Agriani Hermita (Universitas Padjadjaran) is working on The Behavioural Study of Short Supply Chain Consumers in Alternative Food Supply Chain, co-supervised by Dr Tomy Perdana (Universitas Padjadjaran) and Professor Yosini Deliana (Universitas Padjadjaran).
I am willing to supervise doctoral students in the following areas:
- Research related to the interface between simulation modelling and artificial intelligence / big data analytics / optimisation techniques.
- Research related to improving the practice of simulation modelling methods (agent-based simulation, discrete-event simulation, hybrid simulation, symbiotic simulation)
- Behavioural simulation (to understand how modellers build a simulation model or how users use a simulation model for decision making; how to model human behaviour using simulation)
- Topic areas related to the applications of simulation in operations and supply chain management, health and social care, and application areas that benefit the most vulnerable in the society
Past PhD students:
- Luke Rhodes-Leader (2020), Multi-fidelity Modelling Approach for Airline Disruption Management using Simulation, co-supervised by Professor Barry Nelson (Northwestern University) and Dr Dave Worthington (Lancaster University) funded by EPSRC and Rolls Royce.
- David Oakley (2019), Online Simulation for the Operational Management of Inpatient Beds, co-supervised by Dr Dave Worthington (Lancaster University), funded by Lancaster University.
- Dhanan Sarwo Utomo (2018), Comparison of Data Collection Methodologies to Develop Agent’s Empirical Decision Rule in Agent-Based Simulation: Using a Case Study of Dairy Supply Chain in Indonesia, co-supervised by Dr Stephen Eldridge (Lancaster University), funded by Lancaster University.
- Yun Liu (2017), Agent-Based Modelling of Social Risk Amplification During Product Crises, co-supervised by Dr Jerry Busby (Lancaster University).
- Jie Zhu (2016), Logistics Horizontal Collaboration: An Agent-Based Simulation Approach to Model Collaboration Dynamics, co-supervised by Professor Martin Spring (Lancaster University), funded by Lancaster University.
I have examined PhD candidates from the following universities: Brunel University London (2018), Cranfield University (2019), Dublin City University (2020), University of Exeter (2020), Lancaster University (2017), University of Limerick (2017, 2018), Loughborough University (2017), Nanyang Technological University (2019), Technological University Dublin (2017, 2018, 2019) and University of Warwick (2017).
Teaching
I teach mainly business analytics modules such as Data Analytics, The Foundation of Business Analytics and Consulting, Digital Analytics, Spreadsheet Modelling, Computer Programming (Python, C++ and VBA) for business and management students, and Simulation Modelling (Discrete-Event Simulation, System Dynamics and Agent-Based Simulation).
Consultancy work and project supervision
Currently, I am advising a project on nurse capacity modelling that is led by Das Ltd. (2019 -2020). The interim report can be found here. My past client includes the European Commissions, Greater Manchester Police, National Nuclear Lab, Graham Engineering Ltd (SME) and Enterprise Ltd (bought by Amey). I have supervised Masters students who work on projects in organisations such as Jaguar Land Rover, FORD Motor Company, BAE Systems, National Nuclear Lab, and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.
