Student turned Professor: Alumni Interview with Prof. Arne Heinold
KLU’s appointment of Arne Heinold as its new Assistant Professor for Transportation marks a special milestone. A graduate of the 2013 Masters in Global Logistics class, Heinold is the university’s first alumna to take up a professorship at his alma mater. Having previously worked for duty-free giants Gebrüder Heinemann, conducted award-winning research on sustainable transport and 5G technology, and been interim professor for operations management at the Otto-von-Guericke University of Magdeburg, he explains how and why he came full circle.
How does it feel being back at KLU?
Arne Heinold: It’s a bit surreal because I couldn't imagine myself being a professor when I was a student here. KLU has grown significantly and there are also a lot of PhD students, which wasn’t the case when I was a student. I know quite a few staff and they still know me, so that feels like coming home. I also feel a lot of trust as I was in touch with KLU between graduating and starting as a professor. I was also part of the alumni network and was its treasurer ten years ago.
Why did you choose to do a master’s at KLU?
Arne Heinold: I came to KLU after doing my bachelor’s degree in economics at Kiel University because I wanted to do something very close to the business side of things and KLU was the place to be. When I graduated KLU, I wanted to join a company and try out the theories and methods I had been learning at university.
That led to a role at duty-free giants Gebrüder Heinemann. What did that involve and what were you able to bring from your studies to your role?
Arne Heinold: I knew about Gebrüder Heinemann because of a company visit we made with our masters class. I did a traineeship for a year and a half and was sent to Singapore and also contributed to the ramp up of a new warehouse in Frankfurt. It was rewarding to see many of the university-taught methods being used in actual decision-making and I also benefited a lot from the critical thinking and intercultural skills taught at KLU. After the traineeship I became a requirements manager, responsible for the communication between the IT department and the logistics department. After two years of doing that, I wanted to dive deeper into logistics methods. I was very interested in sustainable transport, so applied for a PhD research position at Kiel University.
What was the focus of your research?
Arne Heinold: The DFG-funded (German Research Foundation) research group in Halle and Kiel I was working with had this idea of an eco-labeling system, which is similar to the color system used to indicate the energy efficiency of products such as washing machines. The idea was to transfer this to the transportation sector, so when you order something online you can not only select the price and delivery time, but also the eco-label. During the project, we not only developed this label but also investigated advanced methods to solve complex transportation problems, which become even more difficult when additional considering eco-labels.
Some your postdoc research involves exploring the potential of 5G telecommunications technology on port operations in Kiel. Tell us a little more about it.
Arne Heinold: Kiel has a small port, which doesn’t have container ships but roll-on, roll-off roll ships with a single ramp. The question is, when we eventually have this 5G technology, what should the port do differently in loading and unloading these types of ships? By setting up a simulation environment we were able to estimate the value of additional information such as 5G-enabled tracking of the position of every trailer or in advance knowledge of the storage plan. Another aspect of the project was not only to come up with good solutions, which may be done via machine learning as in my previous research, but the port also wanted the new policy to be explainable to the personnel on the ground.
What led you to your assistant professorship at KLU, and what does it entail?
Arne Heinold: I finished my PhD two years ago and I had an interim professorship in Magdeburg. There was a lot of responsibility, also a lot of freedom and I really enjoyed having the possibility to shape the future of students, so that was pretty cool. But it was clear that there was an end to this position, and I saw the advertisement for the assistant professor position at the KLU and applied.
My assistant professorship at KLU follows the American system, which basically means that you focus more on research since your research is not as, let's say grown, as associate or full professors. So, the main part of my day is filled with research. My bachelor course classes start in October, so I still have half a year time to focus on research and then I will be teaching an introductory class for logistics and supply chain management and a specialized class on transportation.