Position open until filled

The project: The value a customer places on a solution is often intangible but can give a significant market advantage to the supplier with the most acceptable design. Whilst designs, in the form of bids, are generally assessed by people external to the main user, the assessors are still influenced by the key values and their opinions need to be influenced as much as the end user.

This work will investigate approaches to understanding the values placed on a solution by the users within the scope of we, the designer, can address. The placing of tangible values on such intangible features will allow them to be quantified and understood from the design phase forward through to delivery and support. The approaches investigated need to understand the context sensitive customer value space and assess the delivered benefits of the product and not just its price through the delivery cycle from the initial concepts through support and disposal.

The initial starting point for the research will be following up on work by Browning et al. (2002) and Keeney (2004). Research questions are initially focussed on the obvious need to understand the nature of the values and needs that influence customer decisions. The research will be positioned within an action-learning framework that will investigate how the mechanisms of systemic problem structuring can be used to enable beneficial intervention in the customer/supplier relationship as decisions around value are being made.

A full description is available at http://www.bristol.ac.uk/eng-systems-centre/idc/vacancies/thales-ass-cus-values.html 

How to apply:

Applications should be made online at http://www.bristol.ac.uk/pg-howtoapply Please select 'Systems Engineering (EngD)' in the Programme Choice section and quote the project title in the Research Details and Funding sections of the form.

Candidate requirements: Candidates should have a minimum of an upper second (2.1) class honours degree (or equivalent) in a numerate subject (e.g. mathematics, engineering, physics), desirably with engineering and /or business experience

The Research Engineer appointed to this position will be expected to demonstrate a great deal of independent research and management of relationships to make the most of this research opportunity. We are looking for a candidate who is able to embrace a range of research methods including a strong emphasis on qualitative data collection and analysis to address the initial research question. Appreciation of the need for systemic problem structuring as a means of intervening in this complex problem situation will also be required.

NOTE: Candidates must be willing to undertake pre employment and government security checks.

Funding: See Salary

Contacts: Academic contact: mike.yearworth<στο>bristol.ac.uk  

Administrative contact: systems-eng<στο>bristol.ac.uk

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