Nattida Tachaboon

Profile

I am currently the PhD student in the school of Mechanical Engineering, University of Leeds. I have background in B.Eng. Industrial Engineering from Chiang Mai University (Thailand) and MSc. Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Management from University of Nottingham.

When I started studying B.Eng., the importance of learning business strategies would never occur to me. As an engineering student, I have learned principle relating to management but mostly only on engineering’s perspective. After graduation, I had a great chance to work as a production engineer in one of the leading and innovative car manufacturing company, Toyota Daihatsu Engineering and Manufacturing. I learned from this couple of years that having innovation knowledge could lead to significant changes in market and society. Moreover, technology and innovation management are the necessary competencies that company should have in order to compete and succeed in the market. This perspective has shaped in my mind to become a specialist in manufacturing management and innovation management.

After studying MSc. Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Management, I have acquired a lot of knowledges about how to manage innovation and grow business. I realized that knowing only engineering and business management sides was not enough to support innovation management; however, understanding the combination between business and engineering is very important and it has become one reason I have decided to conduct the PhD, emphasizing manufacturing management and innovation management. Consequently, I could integrate both fields and use the knowledges to improve economic condition in Thailand.

Research interests

The business world is driven by two models: cost driven and innovation driven. The companies are usually narrow their focus on one of the models to achieve competitive advantage. While innovation is the important factor to promote new creative product, companies that only focus on innovation without considering cost will not be able to sustain with the current pace of the market. On the other hand, lean management aim to identify value of customers, eliminate all the wastes and reduce the costs.

Recently, the concept of lean combined with innovation which called as “Lean Innovation” has attracted the researchers. However, there is a gap in knowledge on the combined effect of lean and sustainability oriented innovation. In addition, some aspects of lean operation may negatively affect a company’s capability to be successful with certain types of innovations. Therefore, this research is interested in filling the significant gap in the existing literature on this field and extend the knowledge.

Qualifications

• MSc Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Management
• BEng Industrial Engineering