Professor Alison McKay

Photo of Alison McKay

Alison McKay is Professor of design Systems in the School of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Leeds. Her research is positioned within the context of stage-gate processes that typify current industry practice. It aims to facilitate improved modes of working through the exploitation of digital technology and to establish design methods and tools to support systematic evaluation of design alternatives at decision gates. The focus of her research lies in the areas of product definition, design systems and supply chain and enterprise network management. She is currently researching advanced product information representation and management; requirements management and shape synthesis; enterprise network structures and their alignment with the delivery of business strategy; and issues in sustainable product design.

Selected Publications

  • McKay, A. (2005) Research, and Enterprise Networks, PLM Journal ( The Journal of the PLM Interest Group ), March 2005

  • Vassilis Agouridas, Alison McKay, and Alan de Pennington, Consumer product development: A systems engineering approach to the derivation of design requirements from stakeholder needs, 2004 INCOSE Symposium, June 2004

  • Alison McKay, Damian NH Hagger, Charles W Dement, Alan de Pennington, Peter Simons, Relationships in product structures, 7th Workshop on Product Structuring, The Design Society, Sweden, May 2004

  • DTI Global Watch Mission Report, World class supply relationships for the packaging industry – a mission to the USA, September 2003. First published March 2004 by Pera Innovation Ltd on behalf of the Department of Trade and Industry, URN 04/545, Edited by Alison McKay

  • McKay, A.; de Pennington, A.; Baxter, J.E. (2001) Requirements Management: A Representation Scheme for Product Specifications. Computer-Aided Design, 33(7), pp. 511-520.

  • McKay, A.; de Pennington, A. (2001) Towards an Integrated Description of Product, Process and Supply Chain. International Journal of Technology Management, 21(3/4), pp. 203-220.

  • McKay, A.; de Pennington, A. (2001) Organisational design: a tool for evaluating alternative extended enterprise structures, ICED2001, 20-23 Aug 2001, Glasgow

  • McKay, A; Bloor, M. S; and de Pennington A.. A framework for product data. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, 8(5):825-838, October 1996.