Philip Brabazon

Philip graduated in Mechanical Engineering and started as a manufacturing development engineer in a multi-national company, tackling quality and process improvement projects at facilities in UK, Germany and US. A notable aspect was designing experiments using Taguchi methods to identify contributors to quality performance. 

Philip moved into the area of operations risk management, focusing on high hazard sectors, and developed quantitative and qualitative risk assessment methods to assist companies and regulators deal with considerable changes, including downsizing, outsourcing, privatisation and new regulations resulting from major accidents (Piper Alpha, Ladbroke Grove, Sea Empress). Philip led the development of the method for “Assessing the safety of staffing arrangements for process operations in the chemical and allied industries” (HSE Contract Research Report 01348) and gave expert testimony to the Ladbroke Grove Rail Inquiry (Part 2) which considered the future organisation and management of the British rail sector.

Philip joined the major research project "Mass Customisation for Manufacturing Enterprises: fundamental science strategic decisions systems design" at the University of Nottingham where he obtained his doctorate and continued to Senior Research Fellow. A particular focus was the investigation of how the order fulfilment process is dependent on: levels of product variety, customer behaviour, and flexibility of the supply, production and delivery resources. Philip used stochastic models and agent-based simulation to uncover fundamental relationships and counter-intuitive behaviour. 

Philip has published in journals including Production and Operations Management, Journal of the Operational Research Society, International Journal of Management Science (Omega) and International Journal of Production Economics.

Philip supervises Post Graduate Research Students studying for PhD and DBA in Operations subjects.

While at Nottingham Philip created an MSc module on Project Management and also a Project and Programme Management module for an executive MSc on Global Supply Chain Management.

At Portsmouth Philip participates in teaching the full spectrum of operations management modules at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He has extended the coverage of operations management by develping new modules and been central to rethinking and revamping how the subject is taught.   

Current teaching includes "Risk Management and Supply Chain Vulnerability" and "Operations Strategy and the Supply Chain". 

Philip is course leader for the MSc Strategic Procurement.