30. August 2021

“Develop a digital business model for industrial customers based on the metering of energy and material flows!”

That was the task with which Currenta GmbH & Co. OHG approached the students at RWTH Aachen University. A challenge that the students tackled exactly as the Leverkusen-based company had envisioned it, innovatively and with a practical orientation.
The solutions submitted were correspondingly varied, and the jury made a preselection from these to meet the most innovative six teams in person in Aachen. In the final of the now 17th Aachner Case Competition, the jury had the opportunity to scrutinize the teams’ approaches in order to ultimately select the winners of the competition.
The jury consisted of Prof. Volker Stich, KVD Chairman Carsten Neugrodda, who participated in this event for the first time since taking office, as well as Dr. Christian Czauderna, Dr. Philip Voll, Mathias Günther and Stefan Wiegand from Currenta.

There were six solutions to evaluate on site

The first solution presented, “Powerlytics”, was a classic predictive maintenance solution for analyzing and evaluating energy data from various machines to predict wear and resulting failures.
The second team had dedicated its solution “Smart Control System” to real-time visualization of data points and simulation of remaining useful lives.
Team three presented a range of training programs to increase competence with regard to energy-efficient working based on individual energy data with the project title “Chempark Energy Efficiency Programs”.
Followed by team four, with their “ReSchedule” solution, to create schedules of the different production processes to bypass peak loads and targeted installation of photovoltaic systems.
Team five also took a completely different approach with “proCURe” and presented a comparison platform where industrial customers and equipment providers can compare and buy products based on individual customer data and consumption.
The sixth and thus final approach showed “CURREAPP – Next Generation of Metering!”, an option for merging energy consumption and machine-specific data to increase energy efficiency and enable further business ideas.
Six exciting solution approaches, which did not make the decision easy for the team around Dr. Christian Czauderna and Dr. Philip Voll as well as the other jury members. All solutions had something exciting and differed from each other, so that each approach was inspiring in its own right and made a direct comparison with each other difficult. A circumstance that led to the fact that even before the winning team was chosen, it was clear: “We can’t let these young talents go now, we should get to know each other better and talk about a common future!”
For students, the case competition is often the first time they get to know their future employer.

Only one team can win the competition

Then the time had come, the decision was made and during the discussion the jury kept reminding themselves: The solution should be innovative, practical and feasible. For the jury, this was most likely true for the solution “ReSchedule” by Lisa Restel and Anna Johnen, second place went to “CURREAPP” by Alessandro Buscaroli and Gianmarco Villa and third place went to “proCURe” by Katharina Wolfram and Katelyn Liu.
We also congratulate them on their successful presentations and look forward to meeting the students again soon in a different context!
If you are now also looking for creative minds and new innovative solutions, feel free to contact us. In 2022, there will again be an opportunity to benefit from the creative and innovative ideas of the students.