Business Administration & Engineering 

“If you don’t go forwards, you go backwards” – that is why acquiring new knowledge through research is an essential element in providing continuous improvement in the quality of teaching. In order to prepare our students in the best way possible for the world of work it is vital to address current issues and to integrate any advances into the curriculum.

“Business Administration and Engineering” is not a primary field of research. Research areas tend to tie together fields such as logistics, financial control, production, mechanical engineering, biotechnology and information technology. Research activity predominantly comprises the transfer and development of a new correlation of ideas.

The Professors in the Business Administration and Engineering team of Pforzheim University are currently engaged in the following research fields:


Digital Factory Planning
This field of research utilizes a software solution within factory process planning.  Factory construction, module extension or assembly line production functions can be planned and simulated.  The digital factory merges all fields of production from product development to process optimization through its network structure.  The data required can be integrated into the planning in real time which leads to a reduction in planning time and thus reduces the planning costs.  The reliability of the process is due to the use of a wide database.
Prof. Dr. Rainer Wunderlich

Business Process Optimization
Methods to improve the activities and decisions of business processes, based on business ratios essential for the success of a company, will be developed.

Sustainable Mobility
This will deal with the successful integration of economic growth, environmental responsibility and social advancement.  The aim is to develop technologies and methods which address the growing need for mobility more efficiently, in a more environmentally friendly way and which are more socially compatible.
Prof. Dr. Guy Fournier


IT Design for Virtual Organizations
The organizational structure of virtual organizations displays networking cooperation between legally independent units.  Examples are corporate groups, company associations such as production and trade networks and also consortiums of governmental and non-governmental organizations.  The success of cooperation in virtual organizations is to a large extent due to the deployment of needs based IT solutions which are based on cooperation, mediation and group decision making.
Prof. Dr. Heiko Thimm


Risk Management
This research focuses on providing innovative approaches to risk management systems.  The aim is to develop instruments and methods for small and medium-sized companies which enable risks to be measured and quantified more precisely.  The approaches developed are cross-sectoral and enable the corporate risk management team to successfully introduce reasonable costs and thus to accord more stability to their business activity.
Prof. Dr. Hans-Georg Köglmayr


Intercultural Corporate Development
This research project focuses on the challenge of analysing and continually improving the increasingly heterogeneous structures of global companies.  There is a very complex communication structure within organizations with intercultural teams and this places specific demands on both staff and organizational development.
Prof. Dr. Jasmin Mahadevan


Quantitative Methods
This field of research concentrates on the application and further development of standardized methods of statistics and numerical mathematics for numerical compilation, specification and analysis of data.  These methods are useful instruments in the decision making process.
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Gohout


Lean Manufacturing
Lean production aims to analyse processes and to eliminate non-value-adding lines.  The focus centres on production operations (low cost automation), on logistical flows (value stream mapping) and on administrative processes (lean office).  Alongside innovative changes in the value chain the employee plays an important role in terms of the use of their creative potential.
Prof. Dr. Peter Saile


Social Media in Customer Relationship Management
Today’s customers, also known under the name of “digital natives”, as they have grown up with the internet, exhibit a different method of dealing with new media and a different manner of communication.  This field of investigation will focus on how social networking can be utilized, customers informed about products and persuaded to buy, how to gain new customers and commit them to the company.
Prof. Dr. Rebecca Bulander


Global Process Management
Globalization offers internationally-oriented companies, in particular medium-sized enterprises, new opportunities, to serve customers worldwide more effectively than before through integrated cooperation. In management so-called “value chains” are novel, goal-oriented control methods and instruments continuously required for all stages of the global value chain – from development through production to distribution.  They have previously not been satisfactorily developed in either management studies or in practical execution. A team is working on this research using process thinking.
Prof. Dr. Martin Weiblen / Prof. Dr. Harald Schnell


Value Chain Controlling
Alongside the team working on development of management tools for global processes another team is focusing on the financial analysis of value chains of independent companies with transnational business connections.  The idea is to apply the principles of value-oriented corporate management to integrated value chains and to develop and extend the financial control instruments required.
Prof. Dr. Martin Weiblen


Management of Intangible Assets in Medium-sized Businesses
Employees/human capital, know-how, patents and brands have played an important role in the success of medium-sized enterprises both traditionally but also intuitively.  These intangible assets are being viewed ever increasingly as strategic value drivers for such companies.  We are working on research projects which aim to systematically discover, measure and control “intangibles”, in medium-sized enterprises in particular.  For example we are already working in close cooperation with Karlsruhe University in this field.
Prof. Dr. Martin Weiblen

Contact Information

• Print
• Send