Master Thesis at ESCP Business School: Simulation-Based Decision Support for Sustainable Manufacturing Investments
I am happy to announce that I picked the following topic for my master thesis: Simulation-Based Decision Support for Sustainable Manufacturing Investments. Thankfully, my professor at ESCP Business school, where I am doing my Master in Impact Entrepreneurship, accepted this topic suggestion.
The Goal of my Master Thesis
The goal is to develop a simulation-based decision-support framework that includes environmental performance within VSM (Value Stream Mapping) to facilitate more informed and sustainable manufacturing decisions and investments.
In non-technical terms: My master’s thesis looks at how companies, investment funds, or consulting firms can make smarter and more environmentally friendly decisions when investing in manufacturing. The goal is to help them choose the investments that give the biggest positive impact for each Euro spent. I use simulation modeling along with existing methods and software to create a practical way to compare different options. By bringing environmental information into Value Stream Mapping (a method for visualizing how products move through a factory) this approach makes it easier to see how different choices affect both production and the environment, helping decision-makers pick the most sustainable and cost-effective investments.
My “Why” for this Thesis
As I already mentioned quite often, I believe that we can only succeed with the global transformation towards sustainability if we combine economic and sustainable indicators in our decision-making process.
Because: Who will invest in sustainable services or will develop new or improved sustainable products if you can’t be and stay competitive? Maybe – if you have the cash – you can fund R&D towards sustainability for some time and loose money. However, at some point, you have to start making money or even the richest company will go out of business some time.
That is why I also like the concept of “ESG-E” KPIs a lot. ESG-E stands for
Environmental
Social
Governance
Economic
In each ESG-E analysis the economic indicators are included. If the analysis looks good on paper – focusing on the ESG KPIs only – but after including the economic indicators it looks bad, it tells the “sustainable truth” of a current or planned state of an operation. No money, no business, no sustainability.
However, there are no real and usuable frameworks to conduct these (ESG-E) analysis in a standardized and usable way.
That is why I picked this topic. To develop a framework which can deliver this kind of analysis in a complex and dynamic world!
The Framework
I will not go into detail (yet). I will let you know in the upcoming blog posts (the current state and my learnings).
I need YOU
To make it as relevant as possible (not just theoretically), I am now interested in the following things from YOU:
Feedback on what you think about the topic itself.
Could you provide insights and data I could use for my analysis and the new framework?
Do you or do you know a person or a department in your company or institution which could be using this framework for their analysis?
Thank you all for reading my blog posts and sending me emails. I truly appreciate that!
