Entry into professional life at the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering, in parallel with university studies.
Context
The entry into professional life at the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering (IAO) in Stuttgart, in parallel with studies at the University of Stuttgart (Diplom in Technology Management, with concentrations in organisation and ergonomics, 1989–1995). The IAO was and remains one of Germany’s reference institutes for applied business and organisational research at the interface with technology.
Contribution
The assigned research area was service engineering — the systematic, engineering-led development of services using the methods of product and systems design. In parallel, substantive work on graphical interfaces for industrial machines, including projects with Festo and Trumpf.
Three and a half years at Fraunhofer; subsequent move into the already existing Fraunhofer-affiliated spin-off GSM Gesellschaft für Software Management — on recommendation from the institute for GSM’s strategy consulting business.