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Dr Khadija Tahera

Profile summary

  • Central Academic Staff
  • Lecturer in Operations and Supply Chain Management
  • The Faculty of Business & Law
  • The Open University Business School
  • Department for People & Organisations
  • khadija.tahera

Web links

Professional biography

I am a Lecturer in Operations and Supply Chain Management in the Department of People and Organisations at Business School. Before joining the Open University, I worked as a Lecturer and then a Senior Lecturer in the School of Computing and Engineering at the University of Huddersfield. I have also worked as a researcher at Cranfield University and consultant at the University of the Arts London.

I have completed a PhD in  “The Role of Testing in the Engineering Design Processes” in the Department of Engineering and Innovation at The Open University. I have earned two MSc degrees, one in Astronautics and Space Engineering from Cranfield University, UK and the other from Lulea University of Technology, Sweden, under the Erasmus Mundus Joint European Masters Programme. I have a BSc in Computer Engineering.

Research interests

My research interest is in improving Testing for Sustainable product design and Manufacturing and Circular design and manufacturing and in particular:

  • Integration of Virtual and Physical testing
  • Digitalisation of the testing processes 
  • Complex process modelling and analysis

Recent projects: 

Project Title: Knowledge Transfer Project (KTP) on "The RightSize Design Service(RSDS)", Innovate UK (2024 – 2026) . Project partners: The Open University and Low Carbon Europe (LCE). Collaborators: Prof Claudia Eckert (Academic supervisor) and Dr Khadija Tahera (Supporting Academic).

Project Title: InterAct Actionable Insight project to develop "An interactive online tool for prioritising verification, validation and testing activities to support human decision-making"  ESRC, Made Smarter funded InterAct Network+( 2023-2024), Principal Investigator: Dr Khadija Tahera.                  

Teaching interests

I teach Operations and Supply Chain Management, Project Management, Production Management, and MSc Final-year Engineering projects.

 Teaching interests:

  • Circular design and sustainable product development 
  • System engineering 
  • Project management
  • Risk management and resilience 
  • Operations and Production management
  • Lean manufacturing

PhD student supervision:

1. Project title:  “Adaptive project planning” commencing in Oct 2024 

2. Project title: Improve Project Communication During a Project Lifecycle

     Feb 2023- Present      Lead supervisor of Timothy Stevenson, with Dr Bjorn.Claes.

3. Project title: Designing Supply Chain Performance Measurement System Incorporating Sustainability and Resilience to Disruptions

    Feb 2022-Present       Supervisor of Mr Ankith Kamalakshi Ramesh, with Dr Nicoleta Tipi (Lead supervisor)

4. Project title: Decision-making Framework for Virtual and Physical Testing in Engineering Product Development Process

    Oct 2019-Present        Supervisor of Mosope Olaniyan, with Prof Andrew Longstaff, University of Huddersfield

Accepting PhD students. Please click here for more details of a Fully-funded PhD studentship ( look under Department of People and Organisations( DPO))

Impact and engagement

InterAct Actionable Insight project:

This project has developed a systematic method of analysing critical requirements and influences on VVT activity for new technology development and manufacturing. The development of new digital technology needs extensive verification, validation and testing (VVT). Implementing an effective way of analysing the requirements of different stakeholders, i.e., the customer’s voice, regulations and business’s voice and how these requirements must be considered often poses a significant challenge.

This free Interactive online tool allows users to visually analyse the transition of requirements from risk analysis to prioritisation and the impact of these choices. 

Access the online tool 

Watch the tool demonstration Webinar recording

 

Publications

A fuzzy decision-making approach for testing activity prioritisation and its application in an engine company (2023-07)
Liu, Yan and Tahera, Khadija
Applied Soft Computing, 142(110367)

Testing in the incremental design and development of complex products (2019-04-30)
Tahera, Khadija; Wynn, David C.; Earl, Chris and Eckert, Claudia M.
Research in Engineering Design, 30(2) (pp. 291-316)

A Method for Improving Overlapping of Testing and Design (2017-05)
Tahera, Khadija; Earl, Chris and Eckert, Claudia
IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 64(2) (pp. 179-192)

Integrating virtual and physical testing to accelerate the engineering product development process (2014-04-09)
Tahera, Khadija; Earl, Christopher and Eckert, Claudia
International Journal of Information Technology and Management, 13(2/3) (pp. 154-175)

Creating inclusive environments for students with dyslexia studying online in higher education (2024)
Rhoden, Maureen; Maguire, Claire; Gallagher, Clora; Tahera, Khadija and Mathur, Sahil
In : Innovating Higher Education Conference 2024 (23-25 Oct 2024, The Open University of Cyprus, Limassol, Cyprus) ((In press))

Industrial Perspectives on the Adoption of Virtual Testing (2023)
Tahera, Khadija; Jowers, Iestyn; Loureiro-Koechlin, Cecilia; Eckert, Claudia and Lockett, Helen
In : 24th International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED 2023) (24-28 Jul 2023, Bordeaux, France) (pp. 2305-2314)

Testing in Engineering Design: What Are We Teaching (2022)
Patel, A. R.; Murphy, A.; Summers, J. D. and Tahera, K.
In : DESIGN 2022 17th International Design Conference (23-26 May 2022, Cavtat, Croatia) (pp. 2363-2372)

Procurement in new product development for physical testing and collaboration with suppliers (2022)
Tahera, Khadija
In : Logistics Research Network Conference Supply Chain Innovation: People, Process, Technology (7 to 9 Sep 2022, Aston University, Birmingham) (pp. 146-151)

Highlighting the importance of testing in the product development process (2015-07-27)
Tahera, Khadija; Eckert, Claudia and Earl, Christopher
In : 20th International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED 2015) (27-30 Jul 2015, Milan)

Improving overlapping between testing and design in engineering product development processes (2013-08)
Tahera, Khadija; Earl, Chris F. and Eckert, Claudia
In : ASME 2013 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences (IDETC) and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (CIE) (4-7 Aug 2013, Portland, Oregon, USA)

Optimizing overlap between testing and design in engineering product development processes (2013-03-11)
Tahera, Khadija; Eckert, Claudia and Earl, Christopher
In : 23rd CIRP Design Conference (14-15 Mar 2013, Bochum, Germany) (pp. 201-210)

Integrating physical and virtual testing to improve confidence in product design (2012-11-29)
Tahera, K.; Earl, C. and Eckert, C.
In : Workshop on Modelling and Management of Engineering Processes (29-30 Nov 2012, Trinity College, University of Cambridge)

The role of testing in the engineering product development process (2012-05-07)
Tahera, Khadija; Earl, Christopher and Eckert, Claudia
In : Proceedings of TMCE 2012 (7-11 May 2012, Karlsruhe, Germany)

The Role of Testing in Engineering Product Development Processes (2014)
Tahera, Khadija
PhD thesis The Open University