A Successful Partnership
How CREMER Supports Ph.D. Students at KLU
"It's important to bring the best knowledge to the table." For the second time, Cremer Holding has chosen to support a KLU Ph.D. student, Tom Stroink, with a scholarship. This cooperation follows the successful partnership with Ph.D. student Tim Schlaich, who recently completed his dissertation, "Transforming Food Supply Chains: Technology-Driven Approaches to Optimization and Design,” and he received the highest honor (summa cum laude). In our interview, Cremer Holding CEO Dr. Ullrich Wegner explains why they decided to work with KLU and which topics might be in focus for their collaboration with Stroink.
Mr. Wegner, Cremer Holding is currently supporting a second Ph.D. student at KLU with a scholarship. Before we talk about this collaboration, if you could be a student again, what subject would interest you?
Dr. Ullrich Wegner: Thats a good question. At the end of the day, for me, it’s all about people. To better understand people, I would study something like sociology.
Mr. Wegner, why did you decide to partner with KLU and support a Ph.D. student with a scholarship for the second time?
Dr. Ullrich Wegner: Generally spoken, we are experiencing times of great uncertainty, and I think it's important that we bring the best knowledge to the table. That's why we like working with universities. They come up with innovative ideas and great infrastructure, from which we can benefit. We also want to support young talents and offer them a “playground”, where they can conduct research. It’s always very interesting to see how students approach topics from different perspectives.
We started getting in touch with KLU five years ago, to see whether there were suitable ways to team up. Supporting the first Ph.D. student, Tim Schlaich, it was a great success. That’s why we decided to do it again.
We chose to work with KLU, because for me, it is a cutting-edge university, especially in the field of integrated supply chain management. It has great professors, enthusiastic students and very thrilling programs. Here, I found the willingness to support companies with new approaches.
You mentioned that the first collaboration with KLU, which involved supporting Ph.D. student Tim Schlaich, was a great success. Could you tell us more about his time at Cremer?
Dr. Ullrich Wegner: Well, no one from outside the organization would recognize Tim Schlaich as someone from a different organization. Since we offer so many different activities, he could engage in whatever he was interested him, whether it’s in the fields of operational excellence, supply chain, management design, marketing, purchasing, digitalization or applied AI.
Tim delivered great results during his stay with us. To be honest, after he successfully fished the program and working with us, some of my colleagues asked if we could keep him as an employee. He was always motivated, made a great impression, and knew the organization inside and out, so letting him go was certainly painful for us.
What are your expectations for the Ph.D. students you’re working with?
Dr. Ullrich Wegner: The student we’re currently supporting, Tom Stroink, came to us a few weeks ago. Our first task is to identify his areas of interest and topics he can work on. By working with him, we can understand each other better and usually find a research topic.
In general, when students come to our organization, we expect them to be enthusiastic, curious, and willing to be part of our team. Regarding the results, I expect them to be profound, ideally offering a new perspective.
What possible topics or projects might be pursued with Tom, the new Ph.D. student?
Dr. Ullrich Wegner: The first project on our agenda is selecting a new transport management system. We want to manage all goods globally, so we need technical support. One of Tom's first tasks may be to support the decision-making process.
Another important topic for us is the application of artificial intelligence. It's a huge race out there, and everyone wants to be the best at implementing new technologies and solutions. Of course, we want to outperform our competitors. In this context, it's important to include the experiences of universities, since they're often at the forefront of this kind of development.
Further Information
Cremer is a company with a long history, founded in 1946. It is operating a multifold portfolio of businesses in the nutrition, chemicals and trade in logistics areas.
“Back to the Present” – Study by Tim Schlaich and Prof. Kai Hoberg on “nowcasting”, i.e. forecasting the future for better timing of retail orders
More about KLU's Ph.D. Program
