Institute of Automotive Management and Industrial Production (AIP) - Production and Logistics

As we approach the new year, we are excited to share our latest newsletter with you, highlighting key events and updates from our chair over the past year. We hope you find it enjoyable and informative. Wishing you a joyful and successful start to the new year 2025!

We sincerely thank Prof. Dr. Thomas S. Spengler, Prof. manbir sodhi, Prof. Christoph Herrmann, and the Institute of Machine Tools and Production Technology (IWF) for their collaboration in organizing this joint course. Special thanks to Dr. Alexander Barke, Jan-Linus Popien, Aleksandra Naumann, and Robar Arafat for their invaluable contributions to the course's success, as well as everyone else involved. We also extend our gratitude to guest lecturers Prof. Michael Hauschild and Prof. Stephan Krinke for sharing their expertise as well as Prof. Karsten Kieckhäfer for joining the expert talk!

Last week our team members Dr. Kerstin Schmidt and Moritz Proff had the opportunity to attend the German-Chinese Workshop on Supply Chain Resilience: Connecting Theory with Real-World Solutions. The workshop took place at the Technische Universität Berlin and was organized by Prof. Axel Werwatz and Prof. Thomas Volling. The event was supported by the German Research Foundation (DfG) and the the Sino-German Center for Research Promotion in Beijing.   In his presentation 'Designing resilient supply chains using the example of the automotive industry', Moritz discussed the current challenges and requirements for resilient and sustainable supply chains in the automotive industry and showed what impact the establishment of a circular economy would have. Based on the results of our Joint Japanese German Research Cooperation (#J2GRC), he showed how international collaboration helps to overcome current hurdles, learn from common structures, and derive best practice approaches.   We would like to thank the organizers for inviting us to this exciting and informative workshop.

Great work, Dr. Alexander Barke! 🎉 In his PhD thesis, Alex explored the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of innovative aircraft propulsion systems and energy carriers throughout their entire life cycle. His work focuses on identifying combinations of propulsion concepts and energy carriers to improve sustainability in aviation by reducing environmental impacts while ensuring economic feasibility and social responsibility. By combining Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment and Operations Research methods, Alex provides valuable insights into promising technologies at an early development stage and supports research within the SE²A Cluster of Excellence. We warmly congratulate Alex on this remarkable achievement! 👏

We’re excited to share that our latest research, "DEALA - A Novel Economic Life Cycle Impact Assessment Method for Differentiated Economic Assessments in the Context of Life Cycle Sustainability Assessments", has now been published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology ! This paper introduces DEALA, a novel economic life cycle impact assessment method that addresses key challenges like transparency and comparability for economic assessment. DEALA offers: ▪️ Predefined business economic impact categories at different aggregation levels for flexible evaluation and presentation of results. ▪️ A structured framework for detailed economic impact assessments. Integration with tools like Brightway2 for flexible and scalable applications. ▪️ Joint assessment of economic, environmental, and social impacts based on joint life cycle inventories as part of LCSA studies. ▪️ Insights for improving sustainability in complex systems, demonstrated through a case study of a battery supply chain. 📌 Coming Soon: We’re publishing a Python script for implementing DEALA with Brightway2 soon, making it even easier to apply this method in your projects. Stay tuned for its release! 💡 Have questions about DEALA or want to use it in your work? Don’t hesitate to reach out to Jan-Linus Popien - we’d be happy to support you. 📖 Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/dPN9e3ue #Sustainability #LCA #LCC #LCSA #Brightway2 #DEALA #IndustrialEcology

Focusing on circular economy advancements, colleagues from our research team visited ELPRO Elektro Recycling GmbH as part of the Kompetenzzentrum KREIS initiative. This esteemed partner excels in electronic waste recycling and industrial dismantling, offering innovative and sustainable solutions for a wide range of needs. During the visit, we explored their state-of-the-art facilities and engaged in in-depth discussions on topics such as enhancing electronic waste management, refining lifecycle processes, and improving dismantling methods. These conversations provided valuable insights into the intersection of academic research and industry practices. We are grateful to Heiko Martens and Sebastian Mey for their time and the thoughtful exchange, which greatly enriched our understanding of the field.

Congratulations! We are very proud to announce that our colleague and external doctoral candidate at Volkswagen AG, Sönke Wieczorrek, has successfully defended his dissertation on "Lieferantenmanagement in Transportnetzwerken der Automobilindustrie." Over the years, Sönke’s research has focused on improving logistics and supplier relations within automotive networks, offering valuable insights for industry practices. We are thrilled about his successful disputation and look forward to his future career success.

This week, Prof. Dr. Thomas S. Spengler and Tjard Bätge attended the final symposium of the Lower Saxony "Hydrogen Technology Innovation Labs" in Hanover. One of these innovation labs was the project THEWA (Thermal Management of Hydrogen Refueling Stations). Together with THEWA partners in research and industry, we economically assessed and optimized hydrogen refueling station configurations and investigated beneficial layouts for future hydrogen refueling station networks. Tjard explained how operators can use our models to plan their networks in an economically beneficial way during a 15-minute highlight presentation. In his ongoing work, he will also investigate how policy measures can potentially promote this planning. So, stay tuned! We would like to thank the Ministry for Science and Culture of Lower Saxony and the Energy Research Centre of Lower Saxony for organizing this event, as well as all our partners within THEWA for their collaboration over the past years.

As part of the Kompetenzzentrum KREIS initiative, researchers from our Institute visited our project partner, Electrocycling GmbH, a certified recycler of electronic waste that provides eco-conscious recycling services for various applications. During our visit, we engaged in discussions on the future of circular economy practices, particularly regarding the recycling and lifecycle management of electronics, and participated in an insightful tour of their recycling operations. This visit establishes a foundation for integrating academic research with practical solutions, aiming to advance the circular economy in the South-East Lower Saxony region and beyond.

🎉 We are thrilled to announce that Dr. Christian Weckenborg has successfully defended his habilitation, and will be awarded the Venia Legendi in Business Administration from Technische Universität Braunschweig! 🎉 We look forward to his continued contributions to our academic community and wish him all the best in his future academic career! #VeniaLegendi #AcademicExcellence #Habilitation #ProudMoment