Professor Alireza Shokri

Alireza Shokri is the Professor of digital operations and supply chain excellence and the head of the subject group of "Operations, Supply Chain and Logistics Management" in the Department of Operations, Marketing and Systems. He is also Director of the "Centre for Digital Supply Chain Excellence" at Northumbria University. He is also the member of the Academic Advisory Board for the UK National Digitlal Supply Chain Programme. Prior to the current position, Alireza was the programme leader for the BA (Hon) International Business Management Programme. Before joining Newcastle Business School in 2011, Alireza had different practitioner roles including supply chain manager, quality manager, and ISO9001 internal consultant in food sector. Alireza got his first degree in Agriculture Engineering in University of Zanjan, Iran following by MSc in Food Technology in 2001 in Teesside University in the UK. Alireza completed his PhD in Lean Six Sigma application within food distribution SMEs in 2011in Teesside University in the UK and since then he is working as an academic.

 Alireza is passionate in teaching and research. He is very active in action research and research/Enterprise development activities. Alireza is currently co- leading the "Decision making:Analytics, Operations and Marketing" Research Group. Alireza is also member of editorial board for the “International Journal of Lean Six Sigma". As the referee, Alireza is serving many different specialised and high ranking journals such as “International Journal of Operations and Production Management", "International Journal of Production Economics", "International Journal of Lean Six Sigma" and "International Journal of Quality and Reliability Management". As the principal investigator, Alireza currently led a British Academy - funded project about Green application of Lean Six Sigma projects in manufacturing sector. He was recently part of the project management team as the quality manager and researcher of the multi-disciplinary global EU-funded talent management and entrepreneurship projects called as "GETM3" (1M Euros) and "GEMT4" (1.2M Euros).  Alireza was involved as principal investigator in an Innovate UK-funded feasibility study (£300k) in collaboration with external partners in digital supply chain and predictive maintenance integration. Recently, Alireza is leading  the Digital Catapult and Digital Supply Chain Hub-funded project as the principal investigator in partnership with industry with the value of £1.3M.

Alireza's research focuses on digital supply chain and oeprations excellence (OPEX), OPEX4.0, OPEX5.0, Lean Six Sigma and its application in service, manufacturing and supply chain management, supply chain quality management and process improvement and Lean Management. His research has been published in international leading/excellence level journals in his research including "International Journal of Operations and Production Management (ABS 4*).

 Alireza is the member of Chartered Quality Institute (CQI) as the practitioner. Alongside that, Alireza is the Fellow of Higher Education Academy (FHEA), and used to be the member of Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS), and member of Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) that is co-joint professional body with Chartered Institute of Operations Management (CIOM). Alireza is also a certified Lean Six Sigma Green belt with professional capability of leading on lean Six Sigma projects.  

 Alireza is keen on working with local, national and international businesses and he is the strong believer on "Research in Practice". Alireza is currently working with leading organisations such as UK National Health Services (NHS) and many other local and national SMEs and large organsiations in the service and manufacturign sector.