Dr Christina Phillips

Profile

Positions

Visiting Research Fellow Leeds University Business School

Visiting Researcher, forLAB, Bangor Business School (forlab.eu)

Senior Lecturer Business Analytics, Liverpool Business School, Liverpool John Moores University

Previous positions

Lecturer Business Analytics/Statistics, University of Leeds

Business Analyst, Siemens Healthineers, Gwynedd

R&D Manager, forLAB, Bangor Business School (forlab.eu)

Awarded a fully funded PhD Studentship (private partnership with Bangor Universtiy)

Experience

Dr Christina J. Phillips has an eclectic background from tutoring in Physics and Statistics to running her own art and design company. Her specialism has always been in Mathematical Modelling but through recent in-industry research this has been extended to include ways to facilitate and maximise benefit from participative modelling and design.

Her work has helped to improve operations and promote cultural change in a multinational organisation. Leading to substantial savings across the organisation and moving it toward a more questioning data driven culture.

Christina also worked for four and half years as a Business Analyst and Researcher at Siemens Healthineers, providing senior management and staff with Business Intelligence and improving their data management. In this work she gained an understanding of the analytics needs of businesses and experienced first-hand many of the difficulties faced by organisations in moving toward a data driven culture.

In 2015 Forbes predicted that embedded analytics could save US companies $60 B by 2020 but, in order for companies to leverage the full capabilities of analytics in their organisations, the human analytics interface must be robust and fit for purpose. This is especially so in uncertain environments where the reliance on human decision making and management is high, but how can we achieve this?

Dr Christina Phillips research into reducing uncertainty in human processes via analytics has led to the development of a multi-methodology approach called Human Centric Analytics (HCA) © . By coupling various methods she has illuminated how participative analytics development has the power to facilitate change and alter perceptions as well as provide decision tools. By putting humans at the centre of analytics development we can augment their work, enhancing productivity and increasing efficiency. Using this HCA approach in a complex semi-process industry, during a longitudinal case study, Christina was able to augment lean development and facilitate an iterative process of production smoothing. This led to productivity savings and a shift in perceptions enabling a more inquisitive and data enabled culture. It also provided insights into the use of lean in non-discrete environments.

Dr Phillips used an Action Research approach to improve forecast use and understanding throughout the operations and supply chain of a global manufacturer. In a complex business setting it is sometimes difficult to capture all of the relevant information in our data systems and there is a tendency for individual units to silo. Under these conditions models which only capture process and data can fall short of expectations and miss nuances which are held implicitly by the organisation. Using methods such as Action Research together with contextualised explanatory models we can enhance engagement and create new organisational pathways to understanding.
Research interests

Co-chair of the Problem Structuring Methods Special Interest Group for the Operational Research Society https://www.theorsociety.com/

Active participant in the International Meeting on Healthcare Systems Design Research http://www.cachet.dk/calendar/2019/04/international-meeting-on-healthcare-systems-design-research?id=80ed17bf-61a6-46b4-8a5a-4d3bdb0d39d3

Active member and frequent presenter at:

INFORMS Analytics http://meetings2.informs.org/wordpress/analytics2018/speakers-tracks/#phillipsc

Production and Operations Management Society conference 2015, 2016 (invited), 2018 and 2019 (invited) https://www.pomsmeetings.org/

2019 paper “The cherry picking effect” co-authored with Prof Kostas Nikolopoulos (Bangor) and Dr Gary Graham (Leeds)

EURO-k 2015, 2018 and 2019 https://www.euro2019dublin.com/

2019 paper “The Mangle IN practice: a potential meta methodology for bridging the social and the technical”

The OR Society OR59, OR60 and OR61 https://www.theorsociety.com/

2019 paper “Soft OR and Problem Structuring: where is it now and where might it be going” co-authored with Prof Martin Parr (dstl) and Dr Gary Graham (Leeds)

New research;

Using art and design to explain Big Data and Analytics (grant under application with Dr Ulrika Florin (Marlardalen University, Sweden))

Using Human Centric Methods to encourage and innovate in bike sharing infrastructures (grant under application in a joint project with the UN Share the Road Programme)
Qualifications

BSc Hons Mathematics and Physical Oceanography
Dip Phys OU
PhD Management Science

Professional memberships

ORS
POMS
IIF

Student education

Dr Christina Phillips has over 15 years teaching experience in subjects ranging from Physics and Fluid Mechanics to Statistics and Business Analytics. She has taught at all levels and abilities and is an evangelist for STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and design, and Mathematics) having volunteered for many years as a STEM ambassador. These days she teaches in all areas relating to business analytics, including statistical analysis, data management and manipulation, machine learning, programming and the basics of AI