Overview

Professor Disney is a Professor of Operations Management at the University of Exeter Business School. Previously he worked at Cardiff Business School and recently spent 12 months on Research Leave at the University of California, Los Angeles. Professor Disney has previously held visiting positions at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and at Boston University.

Qualifications

Stephen's PhD was gained from Cardiff University and was titled "The production and inventory control problem in vendor managed inventory supply chains". 

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Research

Research interests

Professor Disney’s research interests involve the application of control theory and statistical techniques to operations management and supply chain scenarios to investigate their dynamic, stochastic, and economic performance. Stephen has a particular interest in the bullwhip effect, forecasting, and inventory management. Stephen has advised several of the world’s largest corporations on the bullwhip effect and his research has influenced the material flow of at least 1 in every 7 pounds of UK retail sales. He has worked with many companies in the UK, US, and Europe and on supply chains that operate globally.

Stephen is interested in supervising PhD students in the areas outlined above and also topics on supply chain collaboration, MRP nervousness, global dual sourcing, the dynamics of closed-loop supply chains, integer demand, and non-linear supply chain models.

Stephen is currently the Director of the Computer Simulation and Analytical Modelling research center within the Business School.

Research projects

Stephen is currently exploring the dynamics of global dual sourcing supply chains. He is also writing a book entitled “Setting the cadence of your pacemaker: A lean workbook for reducing your Mura and Muri”.

Links

• Stephen's personal website
• Current WIP book: Setting the Cadence of your Pacemaker: A Lean Workbook for Reducing Mura
• Some thoughts on writing a PhD proposal

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Publications

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External Engagement and Impact

Awards and Honours

• Stephen was awarded a University of Exeter Business School Teaching Award, Department Winner for his teaching on the Maths and Statistics in Business Analytics module in June 2023.
• My paper (with Borja Ponte and Xun Wang) entitled “The nonlinear dynamics of order-up-to inventory systems with lost sales”, won a Commended Paper Award at the International Federation of Automatic Control, 8th Manufacturing, Modelling, Management and Control Conference in August 2019.
• My project with Lexmark was recognized with a prize in the supply Chain Leadership category of Frost and Sullivan's Manufacturing Leadership Awards in 2014. 

External positions

Stephen is currently an:

• Special Issue Guest Editor for the Journal of Operations Management (JOM).
• Associate Editor of the IMA Journal of Management Mathematics (IMA-MM).
• Editorial Board Member of the European Journal of Operational Research (EJOR).
• Editorial Board Member of the International Journal of Production Economics (IJPE).
• Editorial Board Member of the International Journal of Applied Management Science (IJAMS).
• Editorial Review Board Member of the Journal of Business Logistics (JBL).

Stephen was recently an External Examiner at Said Business School, Oxford University, UK for their MBA course.

Invited lectures

• Invited Seminar at the University of Bath, School of Management, UK. "On the transition from make-to-stock to make-to-order", Sept 2023. 
• Invited Seminar at the Glorious Sun School of Business and Management, Donghua University, Shanghai, CHINA, "On the transition from make-to-stock to make-to-order", Sept 2023.
• Invited Tutorial at the International Society for Inventory Research Summer School, Cardiff, UK, "Discrete control theory for inventory management: A tutorial", July 2023.
• Panel member at the 33rd Annual POMS-Conference, Orlando, USA, "Meet the Editors session in the Inventory and Logistics track", May 2023.
• Invited Presentation at the World Intelligent Manufacturing Summit, Nanjing, CHINA, "Global dual sourcing with SpeedFactories: The case of correlated demand", Nov 2022.
• Invited Seminar to the Logistics Systems Dynamics Group at Cardiff Business School,
  Cardiff University, UK. "On the order-up-to policy with intermittent integer demand and coherent forecasts", Jan 2022.
• SpeedFactories: Global dual sourcing under correlated demand, OR Seminar Series at The University of Exeter, College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences,  University of  Exeter, UK, Jan 2021.
• Discrete Control Theory, International Society of Inventory Research Summer School, KULeuven, Belgium, August 2019.

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Teaching

In the past I have taught the following courses at Cardiff University:

• Operations Management
• Project Management
• Operations Analytics (Masters)
• Logistics and Transport Modelling (Undergraduate and Masters)
• Supply Chain Modelling (Masters, service teaching for the Mathematics Department)
• Operations Analysis (MBA, Exec MBA, and Part-time MBA)
• Lean Operations (Exec MBA, and Part-time MBA)

I have also taught the following courses at Boston University, USA:

• Project Management (Undergraduate)
• Global Services and Supply Chain Management (Masters)
• Quantitative and Qualitative Decision Making (Online Masters)

I also deliver executive training; for example:

• Lexmark (Supply Chain Dynamics)
• Yeo Valley (Dynamic Value Stream Mapping)
• UK Intellectual Property Office (Operations Management)
• ACME Automotive Industry of India (Dynamic Value Stream Mapping)

I have recently developed a 1-2 day course for Exec-Ed delivery entitled “Setting the cadence of your pacemaker”. The course shows you how to use dynamic value stream mapping to solve the bullwhip problem. Topics covered include replenishment strategy selection, forecasting, designing replenishment decisions, detailed scheduling, and supplier MRP.

Modules

2023/24

• BEMM223 - Operations and Project Management
• BEMM460 - Statistics and Mathematics for Business Analytics
• BEMM783 - Supply Chain Analytics

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Supervision / Group

Postgraduate researchers

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Office Hours:

Mondays 9.00-11.00.

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