Contact Dr Lampros Litos FHEA, MIET

Background

Dr Lampros Litos is a Lecturer in Sustainable Manufacturing, supervising more than 10 doctoral researchers, and designing/teaching postgraduate and executive education courses in sustainability, circular economy, innovation and operations management.

He holds a PhD in Industrial Management (Circular Economy) from the University of Cambridge, an MBA from the University of Ioannina, an MSc in Biotechnology from Ulster University, and a Chemical Engineering diploma from the University of Patras. His doctoral research at Cambridge's Institute for Manufacturing examined how manufacturing practices improve environmental and economic performance, working with major international manufacturers.

Before academia, Lampros built over 15 years of industry experience spanning R&D, sustainability and quality management roles, as well as senior roles in research commercialisation and knowledge exchange connecting universities with industry across the chemical and manufacturing sectors.

At Cranfield, he was Co-Investigator and workstream lead on the £5m TransFIRe Hub and continues to lead research bids for EPSRC and Horizon Europe. He is a Fellow of Advance Higher Education (FHEA), a member of the EPSRC Early Career Forum in Manufacturing and the Circular Economy, and mentors innovators through the Future Frontiers Fund, Cambridge Climate Society, and Crete's Innovation Business Observatory. Lampros is fluent in Greek and English, with professional Spanish and working German languages.

Research opportunities

Dr Litos's research centres on sustainability and the circular economy in manufacturing and supply chains, with a consistent focus on translating conceptual frameworks into tools practitioners can actually use. Recurring themes across his publication record include:

- Circular economy and materials recovery – barriers, enablers and system-dynamics modelling for post-consumer aluminium recycling and urban mining, traceability improvement across recycling supply chains, and circular approaches to e-waste and PCB recovery.

- Carbon accounting and Scope 3 emissions – how manufacturers operationalise Scope 3 reduction in supplier and procurement decisions, the role (and limits) of AI-enabled analytics in emissions data, and development of sector-specific GHG accounting tools for SMEs, particularly in agri-food.

- Eco-efficiency and maturity assessment – long-running work (dating back to his PhD) on maturity grids and self-assessment methods for energy and resource efficiency in factories, and organisational models for sharing environmental best practice across multi-site manufacturing operations.

- Sustainability frameworks for foundation industries – conceptual assessment frameworks and knowledge/technology transfer mechanisms to help foundation industries (metals, materials, chemicals) scale sustainable practices, developed through the TransFIRe Hub.

- Lean thinking and resource efficiency beyond manufacturing – applying lean principles to public service design and environmental performance, exploring transferability of manufacturing sustainability practices into the service sector.

- Innovation, sustainability and process optimisation – links between sustainable manufacturing practices and innovation capability, and simulation/optimisation of material recovery facility (MRF) processes using AI-based robotics.

- Food security and resilience – sustainability and security in agri-food systems under crisis conditions, connecting to his earlier industry background in food processing.

Underpinning this is a design research and practitioner-engaged methodology throughout — most projects combine literature synthesis with semi-structured interviews, case studies, or tool/framework development validated with industry.

Current activities

Inviting PhDs for research in sustainable manufacturing operations management.

Clients

Constellium

Siemens

Ministry of Industry and Minerals

BAE Systems

Publications

Articles In Journals

Conference Papers

Books