Awards and Honours

 In 2020, the ranking "Der Volkswirt" by the German BA journal Wirtschaftswoche was again extremely successful for Prof. Dr. Stefan Voß. In the category "Top researchers in business administration from Germany, Austria and Switzerland" he has been ranked tenth from 2016 until 2020. In the "Lifetime Achievement Ranking," which is based on the overall evaluation of all publications until the end of 2020, he can even claim the sixth place.

Data source for this ranking is the bibliometric web portal Forschungsmonitoring, which is run by the KOF Economic Research Institute at ETH Zurich with the support of the Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics.

All further information can be found in WirtschaftsWoche 51, dated 11.12.2020.

In the "Ranking of the Top 100 Professors in Business Administration in German-speaking Countries with regards to High-Impact Research  (2014-2018)"  and in the "Ranking of Research Lifetime Achievement of B.A. Professors" of the German journal "WirtschaftsWoche"  Prof. Dr. Stefan Voß has reached again the Top 10 and occupies with 6,27 points and 15,90 points, respectively position no. 9.

The ranking was developed by the Research Institute KOF of ETH Zürich and the Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE)  and is based on the amount of publications in renowned - this means by the journal ranking of the  German Academic Association for Business Research (VHB) ranked - journals. The main data source for the researchers' publications was the bibliometric web portal Forschungsmonitoring.org.

For further information, please read the 4th January-ed. of the "Wirtschaftswoche", 2019.

As before in 2014, 2015 and 2017 a group of students, supervised by lecturers of the Institute of Information Systems, wins the PEMA Student Challenge. The prize for innovative optimization ideas in the maritime sector was again awarded during the  TOC Europe Conference, a conference about emerging technologies in ports, onboard of ships and at container terminals; this year's edition took place in Rotterdam.

The proud winners, Vivien Gradenwitz, Mike Röseler und Arian Tavassoli, gave a presentation which contributed successfully to the challenge topic  "The Environmental Challenge and Productivity at Ports". With their presentation they successfully asserted themselves against student groups of the Blekinge Institute of Technology and, again, of the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH).

As other groups in the previous years, the IWI student group was supervised and supported by  Dr. Leonard Heilig and Dr. Robert Stahlbock.

The IWI expresses its warmest congratulations to its students for this 4th PEMA award!

Students of the Institute of Information Systems (IWI) have won the 5th PEMA Student Challenge with the topic „Digital Transformation for Ports and Terminals“ and received the a prize of 1000 Euros (Please click here for the PEMA news). Moreover, the team was invited to present their solution in front of leading industry organizations from the field of terminal operations at the PEMA Autumn Members Meeting in Tampere (Finland). The final took place on the 29.06.2017 at the TOC 2017 in Amsterdam.

The winners Philipp Doose, Johanna Klaßen, Carla Schäkel, Bernd Strehl and Christopher Werning presented a concept and simulation results for a data-driven dynamic truck appointment system, which improves the planning of truck appointments based on realtime data, big data analytics, and optimization in order to improve gate operations at container terminals. The students conducted interviews with main stakeholders in the Port of Hamburg to identify problems with current solutions. The numerical results of the simulation experiments, performed by using an implemented prototype and different scenarios, show the huge potential for improvement. The approach particularly supports flexible planning, which is continously adapted to current circumstances. This allows not only to reduce waiting times for delayed or overpunctual trucks, but also improves the utilization of resources in the container terminal. As a result, the increasing planning  reliability provides a foundation for improving the planning of subsequent processes in a container terminal.

The group of students was supervised by Leonard Heilig and Robert Stahlbock, who already won the final with student groups in 2014 and 2015, respectively. The head of the institute, Professor Stefan Voß, as well as other members of the IWI provided recommondations and advice to the students. The other two student teams in this year’s final came from the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) and the Blekinge Institute of Technology (Sweden). The judging panel, consisting of the experts Jan Cuppens (Director Global Engineering at DP World), Oscar Pernia (Vice President, Operational Innovation, ATOM Labs, Navis) and Yvo Saanen (Commercial Director, TBA), emphasized in particular the structured and problem-oriented approach and implementation as well as the practical relevance and applicability of the presented solution.

For further information please contact Mr. Leonard Heilig and Dr. Robert Stahlbock.

Dr. Eduardo Lalla-Ruiz (currently Post-Doc guest researcher at our institute financed by a Von-Humboldt fellowship) was granted the Extraordinary Doctoral Award of his home university, University of La Laguna, Tenerife. For further information, please click here [in Spanish only].

A team consisting of members of the Edinburgh university and the IWI (Eduardo Lalla-Ruiz and Stefan Voß) have won the GENOPT competition jointly organized with this year's LION conference on Ischia, Italy.

For further information on the competition, please click here.

During this year's TOC Europe Conference, held in Rotterdam, the winners of the current PEMA Student Challenge were announced -  as in the previous year another student group from the Institute of Information systems was able to win the prize which is remunerated with € 1000.

For their 30-minute presentation on the challenge topic: "The Impact and Mitigation of Berth Error", the students Julia Kasch, Nils Schröder, Mats Hansen and Philippe Tiede, supervised by Dr. Robert Stahlbock, Eduardo Aníbal Lalla Ruiz and Prof. Dr. Stefan Voß were awarded a cheque and will have the opportunity to give their presentation again, this time at APM Terminals’ headquarters in The Hague.

from the left: PEMA President Ottonel Popesco, Dr. Robert Stahlbock, Mats Hansen, Phillippe Tiede, Nils Schröder, Julia Kasch

Mitigating berth errors is a major challenge in nearly all ports around the world. They usually occur when vessels are not able to reach their allocated berth in time. They are, therefore, the cause of substatial congestion and performance setbacks at the terminal. In extreme cases they might even lead to berth errors in other "downstream" terminals.

With their concept of a "Decision Support System including an Information System (DSS/IS), which searches for ex. the most cost- or time-efficient solution in each individual situation by orienting itself on KPIs, the students were able to win jury and auditorium over. A future vision of the students for this tool is its implementation not only on a terminal, but in cooperation with shipping companies and a deployment directly on the vessels in order to avoid further errors by taking immediate, goal-oriented action.

For further information please contact: Dr. Robert Stahlbock

source: pema.org

Prof. Dr. Stefan Voß is ranked as the 13th most research-intensive Professor regarding the category Life Achievements in 2014's Handelsblatt-Ranking. Please visit the ranking here...

On 6/14/2014 the Institute of Information Systems received another honourable mention, this time in an article in the Melbourne University News!

In an article of the "Melbourne Engineer" the Institute of Information Systems rceived an honorable mention on 6/25/2014. Please read on...

We are proud to announce that our research assistant and PhD student, Mr. Leonard Heilig, was honoured by the German  Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI) with a prize for the best master studies of winter term 2012/2013 on 2/13/2014. Pease find the press release of GI here.

Event: 2nd PEMA Student Challenge
Location: TOC Europe 2014, ExCel London


The theme of the 2nd PEMA Student Challenge is "Optimising Landside Container Traffic Flow and the Terminal Interchange". All port authorities and terminals today are under significant pressure to create environmentally and community friendly solutions to manage port community congestion, improving conditions for truckers while simultaneously helping terminal operators to increase their gate and yard productivity. The efficiency of landside traffic management also has significant bearing on overall supply chain efficiency. Key issues include controlling traffic flow and tracking trucks into port areas to minimize congestion, optimizing gate flow to reduce dwell times in the port area, coordination of internal container handling activities, optimizing empty handling processes to reduce non-productive flows.

The students Gökhan Deniz (MSc IS), Zi Sang (MSc IS), Rickmer Weichenthal (BSc IS), supervised by Leonard Heilig and Prof. Stefan Voß, developed a conceptual mobile app for enhancing the communication between truck drivers and ports in order to optimize landside traffic flows. Their simulation study reveals significant improvements regarding important Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), such as container throughput, holding and idle time of trucks. The solution not only improves the productivity of ports by reducing empty trips and efficiently coordinate activities, it also supports differentiation of ports essential for gaining competitive advantages and provides a foundation for reducing the carbon footprint. The judging panel consisting of David Huck (Port Director, Peel Ports Group), Gavin von Marle (Editor, The Loadstar) and Tom Ward (Senior Maritime Planner, Parsons Brinkerhoff), all well-known in industry, appreciate the students’ approach as the most relevant one in solving today’s landside traffic flow problems in ports around the world.

For further information please contact: Leonard Heilig

At the INFORMS Annual Meeting 2010  Prof. Dr. Stefan Voß received a distinction for his outstanding contributions to the Technical Section on Telecommunications:

In terms of research performance  Prof. Dr. Stefan Voß, as a professor in Information Systems, is again among the top 25 of the German economists (relevant for the business administration-ranking including overall 3016 researchers) in the renowned Handelsblatt Ranking in 2012. Click here for the Handelsblatt Ranking.