Citation for Beale Medal 2021
Professor Chris Potts (University of Southampton)
With nearly fifty years of sustained contributions in developing new
theory and algorithms for a variety of combinatorial optimisation
problems, most notably in the area of scheduling, Professor Chris Potts
has been instrumental in advancing the discipline of operational
research in the United Kingdom and internationally. Professor Potts’
academic career included being a Lecturer at Keele University, then
subsequently working as a Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Professor of
Operational Research at the University of Southampton from 1986, where
he remains active in research and teaching. He has served as Head of
Operational Research in Mathematical Sciences at the University of
Southampton from 2007–16 and Deputy Head of School from 2013–2016.
Professor Potts has made truly outstanding contributions to the
theory of operational research, particularly in the area of scheduling
of single and multi-machine production systems in manufacturing,
including online scheduling, flow-shop scheduling, supply chain
scheduling and scheduling with batching. His later work has focused on
developing new theory and methods for problems arising in logistics and
transportation, including airport runway scheduling, railway
timetabling, vehicle routing and workforce scheduling. He has also
contributed to significant research on problems in the healthcare and
sport sectors. Professor Potts is recognised as a leading researcher in
the field of scheduling, both in the UK and worldwide.
Through his supervision of more than 70 projects with industry, for
organisations including Arup, Heathrow Airport, Babcock, Ferrari and
DSTL, Professor Potts has also made remarkable contributions to the
practice of operational research. His involvement in large-scale
projects, such as those to increase airport throughput or the capacity
of the rail network, further highlights his contributions in enhancing
the impact of operational research.
Professor Potts has provided excellent support to the development of
operational research in the UK, including being one of the key members
behind securing the LANCS Initiative and also being one of the main
contributors to the National Taught Centre in Operational Research
(NATCOR) for the Combinatorial Optimisation course at the University of
Southampton. His other roles have included being a Statistics and
Operational Research sub-panel member for the UK’s Research Assessment
Exercise in 2008, and serving as Vice-President of EURO, from 2003–2006.
He has also acted as Chair of the organising committee of VeRoLoG, an
international conference on vehicle routing and logistics, held at the
University of Southampton in July 2013. In addition, he played a key
role in organising a series of International Symposiums in Combinatorial
Optimisation in the UK and linked to the ECCO conferences in EURO.
These are all evidence of his active involvement in the wider community
and contributions to operational research, both nationally and
internationally.
To conclude, Professor Potts has made a sustained and significant
contribution to combinatorial optimisation, particularly in scheduling
research. He has also developed and led large projects in the area and
worked with external organisations to translate his research into
practice. As head of the OR group at the University of Southampton for
many years and through his work supporting NATCOR, he has also been a
mainstay of the OR academic community in the UK.