27. August 2020

Develop concepts to enhance the service portfolio of the future

The annual student competition “Service Innovation Award” gives students the chance to solve problems from industry with creative approaches. This time, the task to be worked on came – as in our case competition in winter, from the Schaeffler Group.  With the assignment “Develop concepts to enhance the service portfolio of the future”, it was formulated in quite general terms in order to give the students of the competition maximum scope to develop new ideas for the future expansion of the Schaeffler service portfolio.
After 3 months of processing time, the six best teams were given the opportunity to present their concepts in a pitch. The final took place in strict compliance with the Corona requirements in the Smart Logistics cluster on the RWTH Aachen Campus.
The expert jury was made up of top-class executives from Schaeffler, the FIR and the Center Smart Services. In the end, Kerstin Lörsch and Lars Klapper were able to convince the jury with their concept for increasing the sustainable use of ball bearings in wind turbines by means of condition monitoring and took home the winner’s trophies and prize money. The two students had developed a complete business model for a service offering based on a comprehensive analysis of the problem and impressively demonstrated to the jury how this can be placed at Schaeffler.
The other finalists also gave valuable impulses for new service offerings. The jury was impressed by the large number of ideas. Particularly remarkable is the fact that the students approached the problem in an open-minded way and were not restricted by supposedly fixed conditions in the industry. The concepts developed were accordingly unconventional and innovative.

We congratulate the winners, thank all participants as well as the Schaeffler Group as case partner and the KVD, which has donated a one-year membership in Europe’s largest professional association for experts and junior service staff to all finalists.

If you too would like to benefit from creative solutions for your company’s service business models, take advantage of the Case Competition. We would be happy to discuss the possibilities with you.