Professor John Quigley
Management Science
Personal statement
A common thread throughout my research is risk modeling, where I develop models to support decision-making under uncertainty. My work integrates data analysis and expert judgment, often applied in the design and maintenance of complex sociotechnical systems. I collaborate across disciplines and industries to create decision-support tools that enhance operational efficiency, resilience, and sustainability.
My research spans diverse application areas, including:
- Large-scale manufacturing processes
- Offshore wind farm maintenance
- Search and rescue (SAR) operations supporting Inuit communities
Selected Projects
NNSAR:
Funded by NERC and Canada’s National Research Council (NRC), this project strengthens the whole-of-society SAR system in Nunavut and Nunavik. We focus on capacity building, skills development, and the creation of a decision-support model for SAR planning, infrastructure development, and emergency response.
Productivity and Sustainability Management in the Responsive Factory
This EPSRC-funded initiative leverages real-time manufacturing data to optimize operations, improve efficiency and sustainability, and apply probabilistic networks for decision support. Collaborators include researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh and Napier, as well as the National Manufacturing Institute of Scotland. Further information is available here. For a full list of the groups publications in the Next Generation Tools for Design and Manufacture, visit our Google Scholar profile
NEXUS
A Horizon 2020 initiative focused on vessel design for offshore windfarm maintenance. This project developed models linking vessel characteristics with windfarm productivity, guiding optimal vessel designs. Partners included academics from Management Science and Naval, Ocean, and Marine Engineering, as well as industry leaders such as Kongsberg, Gondan, Global Marine, DNV, Sintef, and Arttic.
PCAD
An EPSRC-funded project aimed at enhancing engineering design productivity through predictive Computer-Aided Design (CAD). We developed algorithms and statistical methods to support decision-making in engineering design. This is a collaborative project with academics from Design, Manufacturing, and Engineering Management. More details can be found here.
Industry Collaboration
I am committed to industry engagement, having led consultancy and applied research projects with organizations such as:
- Aero-Engine Controls, Rolls-Royce, IrvingGQ, BAE Systems, and the Ministry of Defence (MOD) (defense sector)
- Scottish Power and SSE (energy utilities)
- Scottish Water (KTP), Forth Road Bridge (infrastructure risk assessment)
- Railway Safety and Standards Board (risk of train derailments)
I have also collaborated with the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) on expert judgment elicitation and quantification of uncertainty, and led the COST Working Group on elicitation processes, culminating in the publication of Elicitation: The Science and Art of Structuring Judgement.
Academic & Professional Background
- Associate of the Society of Actuaries
- Chartered Statistician, Royal Statistical Society
- Member, Safety and Reliability Society
- BMath in Actuarial Science, University of Waterloo, Canada
- PhD in Management Science, University of Strathclyde
- Vice Dean (Research), Strathclyde Business School (2021-present)
- Former Head of Department, Management Science (2016-2019)
Prize And Awards
Publications
- Smarter facility layout design : leveraging worker localisation data to minimise travel time and alleviate congestion
- Aslan Ayse, Vasantha Gokula, El Raoui Hanane, Quigley John, Hanson Jack, Corney Jonathan, Sherlock Andrew
- International Journal of Production Research Vol 63, pp. 1326-1353 (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2024.2374847
- Safer and efficient factory by predicting worker trajectories using spatio-temporal graph attention networks
- Sarvan Kumar Satya, Vasantha Gokula, Corney Jonathan, Hanson Jack, Quigley John, El Raoui Hanane, Thompson Nathan, Sherlock Andrew
- ASME 2024 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference ASME 2024 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences & Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (2024)
- https://doi.org/10.1115/DETC2024-143048
- Sustainability tweeting triumphs during the COP events : analysing environmental, social and governance (ESG) communication on twitter
- El Alfy Amr, Quigley John, Tang Leilei, Al Haririr Yousseff, Weber Olaf
- Journal of Asia Business Studies (2024)
- https://doi.org/10.1108/JABS-01-2024-0032
- Safer and efficient assemblies : harnessing real time worker movements with digital twins
- Sarvan Kumar Satya, Vasantha Gokula, Marzano Adelaide, Corney Jonathan, Hanson Jack, Quigley John, El Raoui Hanane, Thompson Nathan, Sherlock Andrew
- 21st International Conference on Manufacturing Research (2024)
- The Nunavut-Nunavik Search and Rescue project (NSAR) : enhancing SAR operations in Arctic Canada
- Belton Ian, Quigley John
- Arctic Science Summit Week (2024)
- Design of a serious game for safety in manufacturing industry using hybrid simulation modelling : towards eliciting risk preferences
- El-Raoui Hanane, Quigley John, Aslan Ayse, Vasantha Gokula, Hanson Jack, Corney Jonathan, Sherlock Andrew
- 2023 Winter Simulation Conference (2023)
Teaching
John provides specialist teaching for a number of programmes at various levels. These have included teaching Management Science at all levels of undergraduate and postgraduate as well as Executive Education. John has taught in 10 different international centres across Europe, the Middle East and South East Asia, as well as Executive Education in Canada.
John is committed to making effective use of technology to support teaching and learning. He has been involved in managing, developing and teaching on pedagogically successful online and distance courses, as well as investigating the effectiveness of using virtual reality environments to support teaching.
Professional Activities
- CABS REF 2028 Symposium: Navigating a changing research assessment exercise
- Recipient
- 1/2/2024
- Scientific methods for integrating expert knowledge in Bayesian models
- Examiner
- 23/1/2024
- ICADE Comillas (External organisation)
- Advisor
- 24/10/2023
- Why information on uncertainty is useful, and how it can help risk management and decision-making
- Speaker
- 22/11/2021
- Bayesian Methods and Knowledge Elicitation
- Speaker
- 2/6/2019
- Deriving Figures from Analogies: Fatal Weapons or Innocent Toys for Elicitation Bias
- Speaker
- 15/5/2019
Projects
- COst Forecasting Framework with Expert and Analogous Data (COFFEAD)
- Quigley, John (Principal Investigator) Liu, Bin (Co-investigator) Revie, Matthew (Co-investigator) Walls, Lesley (Co-investigator)
- 15-Jan-2024 - 15-Jan-2026
- The Role of Hydrogen in the Decarbonisation of the Steel Industry
- Steward, Elise (Principal Investigator) Quigley, John (Principal Investigator) Roberts, Jen (Principal Investigator) Sherlock, Andrew (Principal Investigator)
- This is an interdisciplinary and international research project in collaboration with the University of Waterloo, Canada, which aims to identify the key gaps, barriers and priorities for further research regarding the role of hydrogen in the decarbonising the steel industry, upstream and downstream in the UK and Ontario. The National Manufacturing Institute of Scotland (NMIS) has formed a conglomerate of industrial partners from the UK forging industry and furnace companies to develop hydrogen powered furnace technology for the forging process. This project will supplement their study by evaluating the decision problem from the perspective of the industrialist. Interviews will be conducted with key businesses and stakeholders across the steel industries of the UK and Ontario, to acquire a deep understanding of the barriers, enablers, consequences and uncertainties of industrial processes and hydrogen adoption, thus ultimately informing the development of a novel decision-making framework to assist the sustainable transition of the industry.
This project will add substantial value to the existing knowledge of hydrogen implementation since barriers will be recognised and potential solutions provided. A report will also be produced which will comprise a review of existing processes, potential opportunities for decarbonisation across both production and processing, discussion of the issue from an industry-wide perspective (including consideration of carbon emissions and ‘net-zero’ objectives, carbon taxes, government policy, and hydrogen colour classification), modelling (hydrogen production and storage, transportation and utilisation), prospective risks and rewards (hydrogen embrittlement, costs, technology replacement), and a decision analysis.
Supervisors include: Prof John Quigley, Management Science; Dr Jen Roberts, Civil & Environmental Engineering; and Dr Andrew Sherlock, NMIS. - 01-Jan-2022 - 01-Jan-2023
- Nunavut Search and Rescue (NSAR) Project: Supporting Inuit Health and Well-Being, Food Security, Economic Development, and Community Resilience
- Quigley, John (Principal Investigator) Howick, Susan (Co-investigator) Walls, Lesley (Co-investigator) Wright, George (Co-investigator)
- 06-Jan-2022 - 05-Jan-2025
- Productivity and Sustainability Management in the Responsive Factory (Responsive Manufacturing)
- Quigley, John (Principal Investigator) Sherlock, Andrew (Co-investigator)
- 18-Jan-2021 - 17-Jan-2025
- Working across Disciplines to Understand and Improve Mass Evacuations: Examining Different Types of Risk and Contextual Pressures
- Quigley, Kevin (Principal Investigator) Quigley, John (Co-investigator)
- People who are responsible for mass evacuations during natural disasters are confronted with significant challenges: they must allocate and coordinate limited resources in a dynamic context, often in degraded conditions, and their decisions are consequential, time-constrained and often irreversible. Despite the risks that underpin these decisions and the real-world experience that exists in this domain, there is a dearth of study and knowledge concerning how those responsible for mass evacuation carry out their jobs, and how it might be generalized and improved. These events happen rarely and are dispersed across the country; this, coupled with bureaucratic and market constraints, diminish incentives and opportunities to study such low probability events. Yet there is reason to be concerned. From a national perspective, these events are happening much more often, and at a growing and significant human, financial and environmental cost.
This research project brings together a group of practitioners and scholars with expertise and experience in risk and evacuation. Our partners come from a variety of sectors, including academe, emergency management, telecommunications, politics and the voluntary sector, such as the Red Cross and Salvation Army. The project will be structured according to two interdisciplinary risk frameworks to allow us to examine the interplay between social context and risk characterization to determine the combined impact the two have on government risk regulation regimes. Contextual factors include dynamics such as the role of law and insurance, media and popular opinion, and the role of organized interests. Risk characterization distinguishes between those events that are complex, uncertain and ambiguous.
Our specific objectives are as follows.
1. Partner leading risk scholars with those that are responsible for mass evacuation to develop a shared understanding of evacuation risks.
2. Examine what guides the thinking and actions of those responsible for evacuation, considering the knowledge we have of certain risks and the contextual pressures that are exerted on the regime.
3. Improve dialogue between researchers, practitioners and communities in this domain.
4. Contribute to training tools, such as online tests and a tactical decision game, that help to train emergency managers to address risks during mass evacuations. - 01-Jan-2020 - 31-Jan-2023
- Development of a decision support system for the management of infrastructure
- Tubaldi, Enrico (Principal Investigator) Patelli, Edoardo (Co-investigator) Quigley, John (Co-investigator)
- 06-Jan-2020 - 05-Jan-2022