Prod­uct engi­neer­ing process­es are under­go­ing pro­found change. Com­pa­nies are hav­ing to man­age ever greater lev­els of com­plex­i­ty and strate­gi­cal­ly rethink estab­lished devel­op­ment prin­ci­ples. A focus on sys­temic process­es has already been applied to cars, enabling them to be devel­oped and pro­duced more effi­cient­ly and brought onto mar­kets more rapid­ly. The basic prin­ci­ple is uni­ver­sal, however—and there­fore applic­a­ble to other indus­tries as well.

06/2022

Volk­swa­gen is redefin­ing the car, count­ing on elec­tric drive sys­tems. Thomas Schmall, mem­ber of the Volk­swa­gen AG Board of Man­age­ment respon­si­ble for Tech­nol­o­gy and CEO of Volk­swa­gen Group Com­po­nents, is lead­ing the bat­tery, charg­ing infra­struc­ture, and vehi­cle com­po­nent activ­i­ties and there­by mas­ter­ing major parts of this chal­lenge of the century—the strate­gic trans­for­ma­tion of the world’s largest car man­u­fac­tur­er.

04/2022

Start-ups seek­ing to launch aer­i­al taxis have been attract­ing investors, and some are already on the stock mar­ket. Now the entire sec­tor has to fol­low through—what is need­ed for these busi­ness mod­els to fly?

03/2022

Small­er air­ports offer­ing short flights and sus­tain­able mobil­i­ty for busi­ness trav­el­ers could soon be the win­ners in the avi­a­tion sec­tor. As could small short-haul air­craft.

11/2021

Com­pa­nies from dif­fer­ent sec­tors are rush­ing to send satel­lites into space. Dis­rup­tion and dynamism are the order of the day. “Space data as a ser­vice” is a key mar­ket trend that dri­ves ver­ti­cal­iza­tion in the indus­try.

10/2021

Inter­view: How Volk­swa­gen Board Member Klaus Zellmer expects to ful­fill dri­vers’ wish­es in the future. 

06/2021

Elec­tric cars are only as good as their batteries—one of the most essen­tial and expen­sive com­po­nents. The pro­duc­ers of these bat­ter­ies need to mas­ter the tech­nolo­gies and offer com­pet­i­tive prices if they are to suc­ceed. The bat­tery experts at Porsche Con­sult­ing know the means by which large num­bers of the cov­et­ed ener­gy stor­age devices can be produced—at half the price.

06/2021

The last pas­sen­gers have hard­ly dis­em­barked before night­ly main­te­nance work on the fleet of ICE trains begins. A pre­cise timetable is impor­tant here too, as shown by a visit to Deutsche Bahn’s newest main­te­nance depot.

09/2020

Audi has com­plete­ly reor­ga­nized its pro­duc­tion work. One of the largest restruc­tur­ing projects in Germany’s auto­mo­tive indus­try was com­plet­ed with­in a sin­gle year – and is already pay­ing off.

09/2020

Empty air­ports and train sta­tions and the sus­pen­sion of car production—the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic brought mobil­i­ty to a halt in many parts of the world. The CEOs of lead­ing mobil­i­ty com­pa­nies look to the future.

09/2020

Expec­ta­tions are high and the tech­nolo­gies are proven – is the hydro­gen econ­o­my about to take off? The play­ers still need to net­work and to estab­lish their busi­ness mod­els.

09/2020

The bat­tery mar­ket for elec­tric vehi­cles is going from strength to strength. But it is still char­ac­ter­ized by a high level of uncer­tain­ty with sig­nif­i­cant swings in demand. LG Chem is man­ag­ing this volatil­i­ty at its giant plant in Poland.

09/2020

Few indus­tries have been hit as hard by the corona­virus as avi­a­tion. Now is the time to devel­op ideas that will facil­i­tate a rapid return when the cri­sis is over. Dig­i­tal­iza­tion and sus­tain­abil­i­ty will play an impor­tant role.

09/2020

Inter­view: Dr. Tanja Beck­er, an entre­pre­neur and air­line pilot, applies avi­a­tion meth­ods to business—to enhance safe­ty and deci­sion-mak­ing.

09/2020

The BAUER Group pro­duces the sophis­ti­cat­ed machin­ery for its own ground- and ground­wa­ter-relat­ed work. And for its direct com­peti­tors. The com­pa­ny has embarked upon a trans­for­ma­tion designed to con­tin­ue its extra­or­di­nary tra­di­tion of world cham­pi­onship per­for­mance in this high­ly spe­cial­ized field.

10/2021

Gold­beck GmbH, a fam­i­ly-run con­struc­tion and real estate com­pa­ny based in Biele­feld, offers every­thing from a sin­gle source. It designs, builds, and oper­ates com­mer­cial prop­er­ties such as hall build­ings, office com­plex­es, and multi-level car parks. It also man­u­fac­tures the com­po­nent parts of these struc­tures. With the courage to pur­sue an indi­vid­ual course yet also to think in sys­tems, it has become one of Germany’s most suc­cess­ful medi­um-sized enter­pris­es.

07/2021

The con­struc­tion indus­try can­not keep up with the demand for hous­ing. This is large­ly because con­struc­tion sites are not effi­cient enough. New tech­nolo­gies and busi­ness mod­els could suc­ceed in cut­ting this Gor­dian knot.

09/2020

Fam­i­ly-run com­pa­nies with long-stand­ing suc­cess­ful prod­ucts pre­fer to stick to their tra­di­tions. Change can be dif­fi­cult for them—unless the next gen­er­a­tion brings an unusu­al degree of courage. Like at Edding.

09/2022

Dig­i­tal solu­tions are cen­tral to Nestlé’s Covid-19 come­back. CIO Fil­ip­po Cata­lano on the con­sumer goods giant’s response to cri­sis, the impor­tance of pre­pared­ness, and where big com­pa­nies go from here.

09/2020

The corona­virus has also jolt­ed the food indus­try. Four man­agers explain how this led them to focus on essen­tials—and how they even dis­cov­ered some new oppor­tu­ni­ties.

09/2020

The mobil­i­ty sec­tor is in flux and the DKV Mobil­i­ty Group is in the thick of things. Thanks to dig­i­tal solu­tions and a focus on elec­tric mobil­i­ty, this long-stand­ing com­pa­ny is devel­op­ing into an inno­v­a­tive ser­vice provider for ship­ping com­pa­nies and fleet oper­a­tors through­out Europe. Exper­tise from Porsche Con­sult­ing helped DKV launch its process of trans­for­ma­tion.

07/2021

Crit­i­cal ser­vice providers like the RWE util­i­ty com­pa­ny need to be espe­cial­ly well pre­pared for emer­gen­cies. Pre­cise and detailed plan­ning ensure that they can respond rapid­ly to unex­pect­ed events.

09/2020

Which com­pa­nies will sur­vive the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic, and which will not? Banks play a key role in this ques­tion. How DZ Bank is mov­ing quick­ly to the aid of its clients.

09/2020

Every­day oper­a­tions at many com­pa­nies are deter­mined by a con­stant pres­sure to change. Yesterday’s guide­lines no longer apply to today’s world. The mere appeal to ratio­nal thought alone is not enough to bring every­one on board. Intu­ition plays a key role in suc­cess­ful change man­age­ment. And it all begins in the minds of top man­agers.

01/2022

Hydro­ge­nious LOHC Tech­nolo­gies GmbH has devel­oped a tech­nol­o­gy that binds high­ly volatile hydro­gen gas with oil. This achieve­ment led to the com­pa­ny being nom­i­nat­ed for a 2021 Ger­man Entre­pre­neur­ial Award (Deutsch­er Grün­der­preis). Porsche Con­sult­ing will be sup­port­ing Hydrogenious’s efforts to fur­ther scale up its activ­i­ties.

09/2021

When – seem­ing­ly overnight – a pan­dem­ic changed the way the world worked, Porsche’s con­sul­tants had to come up with clever ways to com­plete projects with­out let­ting clients down.

09/2020

The Covid-19 cri­sis has not affect­ed all parts of the econ­o­my equal­ly. For some indus­tries it has even brought more oppor­tu­ni­ties than chal­lenges. We present cru­cial con­sid­er­a­tions for top man­agers in fields from mechan­ical engi­neer­ing to finan­cial ser­vices.

09/2020

The Covid-19 pan­dem­ic sent shock waves through busi­ness­es and the econ­o­my. In con­se­quence, sus­tain­abil­i­ty could fade into the background—or become an even more impor­tant fac­tor for suc­cess.

09/2020

Early warn­ing sys­tems buy time and pro­vide a basis for prompt action. They use data to gain insights into poten­tial future sce­nar­ios. But they run up against lim­its, espe­cial­ly in con­nec­tion with pan­demics.

09/2020

Act­ing swift­ly and authen­ti­cal­ly, ensur­ing trans­paren­cy, build­ing trust—the demands placed on com­mu­ni­cat­ing with stake­hold­ers are espe­cial­ly high in a cri­sis. In such sit­u­a­tions social media are both a bless­ing and a curse.

09/2020

Crises tend to hit peo­ple and orga­ni­za­tions unpre­pared. Strong per­son­al­i­ties are then need­ed, who can see the big pic­ture and act calm­ly. What exact­ly are the qual­i­ties of out­stand­ing cri­sis man­agers?

09/2020

The corona­virus has accel­er­at­ed dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion in many sec­tors. It has revealed deficits, but also released new ener­gy. We look at five indus­tries and their dig­i­tal futures.

09/2020

Inter­view: Lock­downs have deeply shak­en glob­al sup­ply chains. Expert Edwin Keh from Hong Kong advis­es com­pa­nies to gain deep­er insights and make secu­ri­ty a pri­or­i­ty in their strate­gic con­sid­er­a­tions. 

09/2020

In this time of cri­sis, many com­pa­nies are switch­ing to man­u­fac­tur­ing essen­tial prod­ucts, launch­ing ini­tia­tives, and send­ing their employ­ees to places they are need­ed. A look at their rea­sons.

09/2020

Dig­i­tal inno­va­tions not only sim­pli­fy the lives of doc­tors and patients but can pro­tect them too. With that aim, GE Health­care—a man­u­fac­tur­er of med­ical sys­tems—wants to do away with wait­ing rooms.

09/2020

Inter­view: Swiss emer­gency med­ical direc­tor Aris­tome­nis Exadak­ty­los urges bet­ter prepa­ra­tions for epi­demics.

09/2020

Bat­tling the corona­virus is part of every­day oper­a­tions at Munich’s Rechts der Isar Hos­pi­tal. Com­mer­cial direc­tor Dr. Elke Frank sees oppor­tu­ni­ties now to catch up on dig­i­tal­iza­tion.

09/2020