Professor Rajkumar Roy

Professor Rajkumar Roy, Cranfield University

Professor of Competitive Design and Head of Manufacturing Department
Location: Building 50, Cranfield campus
E: r.roy@cranfield.ac.uk
T: +44 (0)1234 758335
Manufacturing


Current activities

Current research activities:

  • Whole Life Cost Modelling for Product-Service Systems: this research is looking to identify the cost drivers and related uncertainties associated with capability contracts at the bidding stage. The project will develop specific cost models and a framework to predict affordability of the long term projects. The research will also develop a framework to present the information effectively at the bidding stage.
  • Real Life Design Optimisation with Uncertainty: This research is looking at developing approximate thermal models of rolling systems and associated uncertainties. Evolutionary computing techniques are developed for the rolling system design optimisation.
  • Automating Business Process Optimisation: The research has developed a representation for business processes within a service sector. Evolutionary computing based approach is developed to optimise the process by minimising the cycle time and maximising the operational cost.
  • Discrete Event Simulation and Cost: The research is integrating cost related information within a discrete event simulation environment to predict costs of different steelmaking scenarios.
  • PSS Knowledge Management: The research is looking at developing a framework to link design, manufacturing and service knowledge to concept design. The research is developing better understanding about service knowledge required at the concept design stage and service features.
  • Product-Service Systems (PSS) Design: This project will develop a language and formal representation of product-service systems at the concept stage to support the PSS design.

Key competencies

  • Developing whole life cost models for products and services. Identifying and modelling uncertainties involved in cost estimates at the bidding stage
  • Real life design and service optimisation
  • Real life application of soft computing techniques for modelling and optimisation
  • Requirements management methodology development
  • Developing innovative product-service systems business models for companies.

Clients

Industrial Clients:

  • BAE Systems                      
  • Ford Motor Company
  • Airbus                                 
  • Nissan Technology Centre, Europe
  • Rolls-Royce                        
  • Honda Research
  • Smiths Aerospace               
  • Johnson Controls
  • Lockheed Martin               
  • Fiat Research
  • GKN Aerospace Services   
  • Corus
  • Ministry of Defence            
  • BT
  • Edwards                            
  • Cosworth
  • Price Systems                   
  • Galorath
  • Cognition.

Funding Bodies:

  • EPSRC
  • IMRC (Cranfield University)
  • EU
  • Industry
  • DTI
  • HEFCE.

Background

Professor Rajkumar Roy led Competitive Design research at Cranfield for over ten years before promotion to Head of Manufacturing Department in 2009. Competitive Design is a fact based approach to study whole life of technology intensive products and services and optimise their design, along with efficient design information and knowledge management.

Professor Roy is known for his qualitative cost modelling, requirements management and design optimisation research and has published over 20 Journals and 100 conference papers. He is currently the Principal Investigator of three Product-Service System (PSS) projects (IMRC and EPSRC funded) in the areas of whole life cost and service knowledge capture. He is also the Principal Investigator of an IMRC funded Network of Excellence in Affordability Engineering. BAE Systems is a major sponsor of his research along with Airbus, Rolls Royce, MoD, BOC Edwards, Nissan and Ford Motor Company. He is currently leading the new initiative on Competitive Creative Design at Cranfield and collaboration with University of the Arts London, and has also developed an innovative PSS Futures Lab at Cranfield.

Professor Roy has a PhD in design optimisation using soft computing techniques. Before that he completed formal postgraduate education on intelligent systems and production engineering. He is a Chartered Engineer and the Vice President and Fellow of the Association of Cost Engineers (AcostE), a member of IEEE, IED and the Institution of Engineers (India). He has also been an Associate Member of CIRP over 3 years. Professor Roy is the Editor in Chief of the Applied Soft Computing journal from Elsevier.

Selected publications

  • RIOS, J., ROY, R. AND LOPEZ, A., “Design requirements change and cost impact analysis in airplane structures”, International Journal of Production Economics,Volume 109, Issues 1-2,pp. 65-80, 2007
  • ODUGUWA, P., ROY, R. AND SACKETT, P. J., “Cost impact analysis of requirement changes in the automotive industry: a case study”, Accepted for Journal of Engineering Manufacture, Part B, IMechE, ISSN 0954-4054
  • LING, D., ROY, R., SHEHAB, E., JAISWAL, J. AND STRETCH, J., “Modelling the cost of railway asset renewal projects using pairwise comparisons”, Accepted for Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part F, Journal of Rail and Rapid Transit , IMechE, ISSN 0954-4097
  • KERR, C. I. V., ROY, R. AND SACKETT, P. J., “Requirements management: an enabler for concurrent engineering in the automotive industry”, Accepted for the International Journal of Production Research, Taylor & Francis, ISSN 0020-7543
  • ODUGUWA, V., ROY, R. AND FARRUGIA, D., “Design optimisation within quantitative and qualitative search space using approximate models, Accepted for Applied Soft Computing, Elsevier, ISSN: 1568-4946
  • ROY, R., ADESOLA, B. A. AND THORNTON, S., “Development of a knowledge model for managing schedule disturbance in steelmaking”, International Journal of Production Research, Taylor Francis, vol. 42, pp. 3975 – 3994, ISSN 0020-7543, 2004
  • ROY, R., COLMER, S. AND GRIGGS, T., “Estimating cost of a new technology intensive product: a case study approach”, International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, In Press, pp. 18 pages, ISSN: 0925-5273, 2004.
  • Roy, R., Tiwari, A. and Corbett, J., “Designing a turbine blade cooling system using a generalised regression genetic algorithm”, CIRP Annals, vol. 52/1, pp. 415-418,ISSN 1726-0604, 2003
  • ROY, R., JARED, G. AND MUSSA, R., Curve and surface optimisation within the CAD/CAM environment, Journal of Engineering Design, Carfax Publishing Taylor Francis, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 121-139, ISSN 0954-4828, 2002
  • Rush, C. AND Roy, R., “Expert judgement in cost estimating: modelling the reasoning process.”, Concurrent Engineering: Research and Applications (CERA) Journal, SAGE Publisher, vol. 9, issue 4, pp. 271-284, ISSN 1063-293X, 2001
  • ROY, R., Forsberg, S., Kelvesjo, S. and Rush, C., Quantitative and qualitative cost estimating for engineering design, Journal of Engineering Design, Carfax Publishing Taylor & Francis Ltd., vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 147-162, ISSN 0954-4828, 2001.

Further publications