“Welcome Aboard!”“The future of mobility is exciting—each and every one of us can shape it”Prof. Dr. Simone Neumann strengthens the Faculty of Business Administration

14 September 2022, by Neumann/Red.

Photo: Private

Prof. Dr. Simone Neumann

Every year, Universität Hamburg welcomes numerous new researchers. This series introduces them and their areas of research. This time, we meet business economist Prof. Dr. Sabine Neumann.

In August 2022, Prof. Dr. Simone Neumann, previously at the Helmut Schmidt University—University of the Federal Armed Forces, joined Universität Hamburg as Professor of Business Administration, in particular Sustainable Logistics and Mobility Systems at the Faculty of Business Administration.

My research area in 3 sentences:

I look at various questions in the fields of logistics and mobility, combining empirical research with operations research methods. I particularly like to investigate real-world problems and apply scientific methods to develop improved solutions. Currently, for example, I am working on a research project to investigate the possibility of “crowdshopping,” i.e., private individuals do supermarket shopping for other people.

I explain what I do to my friends and family as follows:

Imagine you have to deliver a truckload of packages to a huge range of addresses. Of course, you could just drive off to the recipients’ addresses in any order. But if you think carefully beforehand and maybe even calculate what order will ensure the shortest/fastest route, you can save a lot of time and/or expense. And if you now also think outside the box and consider innovative solutions, e.g., additional drivers who travel this way anyway; autonomous driving; the use of drones or public transport for delivery, etc. you might find sustainable solutions that save time, money, and/or also energy and emissions.

In Hamburg, the city and the University, I am looking forward to:

I find Hamburg a lively city. It’s just fun to discover it, to become inspired by its many different people and innovative projects and to be motivated to pursue new ideas and to shape the world around us. The University is a great place for this and with its many research groups and institutions, it offers unique possibilities, also for interdisciplinary research projects. I very much look forward to cooperation with my colleagues at the University, in the Faculty of Business Administration, and especially in operations and supply chain management.

These are my plans at Universität Hamburg:

My goal is to more strongly network the field of logistics through international and interdisciplinary research projects and to allow for synergy. I would like to build upon my existing networks, create new ones, and connect these to Universität Hamburg. I also want to use the advantages that such cooperation brings with it for my students and to let them benefit from it.

This is why students should come to my lectures:

Operations research and getting to know solutions to questions in logistics are not only exciting, they also help us understand everyday problems and to see them from other perspectives. I handle a few of these problems, for example, in my lecture introducing graph theory.

Reaching out to the world: I work with the following international and federal institutions and universities:

I enjoy close cooperation with Western Norway University of Applied Sciences in Haugesund in Norway and the Ben-Gurion University in Be’er Scheva in Israel. In addition to cooperation in the corporate sector, I also have an extensive applied project with the Lufthansa Group.

My research is important to society, to help resolve the following issues:

There is plenty of untapped potential in the distribution of goods or transportation of people. Economically, ecologically, and socially, we would profit from organizing differently or from alternative types of transport and transport solutions. The goal of my research is, among other things, to study these possibilities (not just from economic but also from a societal perspective), and thus (I hope), to help shape sustainable, promising transport.