The Institute of Production and Supply Chain Management develops methods for planning and coordinating production and logistics processes. We also study the implementation of these methods in industrial companies and are therefore constantly looking for interested research partners and projects. Our research is closely linked to industrial practice. We cooperate with companies in various projects to transfer scientific findings to production, logistics and supply chain management practice and to validate our results. Possible forms of cooperation can range from the supervision of internships, practical seminar papers, bachelor and master theses to direct cooperation projects with companies. Some selected examples:

Some selected examples:

MAN Nutzfahrzeuge AG

Optimization of the warehouse and order picking area

The project aimed to investigate the material flows within an order picking warehouse with U-shaped picking zones. Planning procedures were developed that support the allocation of products to storage locations as well as the retrieval of products from the warehouse, with the objective of minimizing the distance that the pickers have to travel when processing orders.

Case Study MAN Nutzfahrzeuge AG (German only) (opens in new tab)

Kneipp-Werke

Learning effects in order picking

The project focused on investigating learning effects in an order picking warehouse. We empirically studied whether the tasks performed during order picking lead to learning effects, and whether the time required to execute picking orders decreases with increasing employment duration of the picker.

Fallstudie Kneipp-Werke (German only) (opens in new tab)

HEAG BKK

Introduction of a business process management

The subject of the project was the documentation of business processes at HEAG BKK. The objective of the project was to secure the knowledge of the employees by documenting the business processes to protect the company against employee turnover. The documentation also aimed at enabling a uniform work quality for the various processes as well as making the training of new employees easier.

Project Presentation HEAD BKK (German only) (opens in new tab)

Workshop order picking

Increasing process efficiency in manual order picking

The aim of the workshop was the identification of factors influencing the efficiency of manual picking processes. For this purpose, data related to order picking was collected from the participating companies by means of expert discussions and questionnaires. With the help of the data obtained from company-specific case studies as well as from a simulation model, factors were identified that can increase the efficiency of the processes in manual picking.

Partners: DAW SE, Merck KGaA, STIHL Vertriebszentrale AG & Co. KG, Technische Universität Darmstadt.

Selection of completed theses in cooperation with companies

  • Planning of supplier capacities to enable a pro-active risk management
  • Optimization of production planning and control for the multi-variant dial production of an automotive supplier
  • Economic efficiency of ergonomic measures in production
  • Documentation and modeling of processes at a large company health insurance company in Darmstadt