Institute for Supply Chain and Operations Management

In trustworthy cooperation with practice and science, the Institute for Supply Chain and Operations Management carried out its range of courses and assumes various tasks in the areas of research and transfer. We see ourselves within the triangle of practice, research and teaching as an active designer of learning and organisational processes and as a competent contact partner for students and companies from different sectors. Our activities are supported by a holistic, interdisciplinary, cooperative and scientific approach.

Industrial engineers take on management tasks that are aligned with corporate objectives and shape and control value chains across companies and industries. The focus lies on procurement, logistics, and production. Leadership responsibilities include the design of processes, organization, information management, and human resource deployment. In a globalized economy, modern industrial engineering is the key guarantor of sustainable business success.

The institute undertakes tasks in the areas of teaching, research, and knowledge transfer.

Teaching

The goal of our teaching is to prepare future specialists and managers to solve complex problems independently using scientific methods. By studying at HAW Kiel at the bachelor’s and master’s level, our students gain a solid foundation for a successful professional future.

In compulsory modules, we convey the full range of supply chain and operations management. In elective modules, we deepen selected topics that are of particular importance in practice and research today or are expected to gain importance in the coming years. Our bachelor’s and master’s students have the opportunity to set a professional focus in their studies by attending specialized courses and to qualify for a career in supply chain and operations management. Intensive interaction with our students is important to us. We design our courses as lectures, seminars, and practical projects, complemented by company excursions and guest lectures from practitioners. Particularly intensive collaboration takes place in practical projects, which are carried out together with companies. In this way, we demonstrate how theoretical knowledge from teaching is applied in practice. An overview of our compulsory and elective modules can be found here.

Our students have the opportunity to work on practice-oriented tasks in supply chain and operations management during internships or as part of their final theses in a company, supervised by us. This promotes intensive engagement with real business issues already during their studies. It is not uncommon for students to transition directly into permanent employment upon graduation.

Research

Our research is both scientific and application-oriented. We publish our research results in national and international journals as well as at professional conferences. By participating in and contributing to academic congresses, we maintain contact with other researchers and can directly feed current research results back into our teaching.

In applied research, we advise companies on current challenges, incorporating both our scientific expertise and that of our students. For example, student theses written in companies closely link academic theory with the specific problems of the organization under consideration. In our management projects, teams of students work within companies to tackle larger business tasks using scientific methods.

Transfer

Consulting and corporate training are our contributions to knowledge transfer. Members of the institute contribute their many years of experience and strong connections with the business community.

The goal is to initiate and actively support organizational change processes that lead to competitive advantages.

“Further education with broader vision(!)” is the motto of the institute’s training offerings. Whether through in-house seminars or open seminars, our aim is to broaden horizons and provide impulses for sustainable organizational development.

The team of professors from the Institute for Supply Chain and Operations Management represents competences in numerous, complementary fields of work, especially in the following fields of competence (for details, please click on the respective topic):

• Process Management
• Sustainability
• Organisational Structure / Staff
• Digitisation
• Strategy
• Quality Management
• Controlling / Key Figures
• Inventory Management
• Layout Planning