Overview
The Centre for Process Excellence & Innovation is a research centre that brings together industry and academic partners to explore solutions on how to create sustainable competitive advantage through process improvement and product innovation. We define competitiveness as a combination of two fundamental capabilities:
- to innovate and develop novel products and services, and
- to design, measure and improve the operational processes that efficiently produce and deliver these goods and services to the customer.
Professor Jane Davies
Deputy Director
Our focus
Processes transcend all business activity, from manufacturing to services, and from private to public sector organisations: getting these processes “right” is a fundamental requirement for managing service levels and unit cost, which in turn co-determine the competitiveness of the wider firm. Our research thus takes a broad view of the three main types of processes: manufacturing, service and support (or overhead) processes.
Leading edge research needs to be rigorous, revealing but also relevant. Firmly based in the tradition of empirical Operations Management and Industry Studies, we are led by observations and problems from the world of business and policy. A key focus of the Centre is thus to provide a forum where industry and academia can interact and collaborate through research, executive education and student projects. Our research seeks to develop leading-edge thinking and solutions that are of direct relevance to practice – following our overarching aim of “improving processes, making ideas and work flow, creating value”.
If you or your organisation would like to explore ways of getting involved, please do get in touch. We look forward to hearing from you.