Panalpina opens new Logistics Manufacturing Research Centre with Cardiff Business School

Panalpina and Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Wales (UK), have strengthened their partnership with the launch of a new Logistics Manufacturing Research Centre, which opened at the beginning of October 2016. The center will conduct leading research into the fields of distributed manufacturing, 3D printing, the circular economy and the impact of digital manufacturing on global supply chains. The new center has already secured its first research grant.

The new Panalpina Research Centre, partially funded by Panalpina, is located at Cardiff Business School. With Panalpina employees working alongside academic researchers, both partners will gain more insight into the evolving world of logistics and manufacturing.

Mike Wilson, global head of Logistics at Panalpina says: “Over the last four years of working with Cardiff Business School, we have been able to jointly identify future manufacturing and supply chain trends, and build our business in anticipation of this changing environment. Looking ahead, the insight provided by the research center will allow Panalpina to better design our customers’ manufacturing and supply chain strategies with new technologies and macro-economic forecasts in mind.”

Professor Aris Syntetos, the Panalpina Chair in Manufacturing and Logistics Research, Cardiff Business School, will head the new research center. He has recently secured a £500,000 research grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) – the UK's main agency for funding research in engineering and the physical sciences. Syntetos was awarded the grant to support the center’s research into sustainable and circular remanufacturing networks. Ultimately, the grant will allow Cardiff Business School and Panalpina to conduct further research on the circular economy, where logistics and manufacturing services in the supply chain are increasingly combined.

Panalpina is an advocate of the circular economy, and believes that the future lies in better managing and extending product life cycles – from sourcing to disposal. In an effort to drive innovation in the area, Panalpina and Cardiff Business School have worked together on a number of research projects. This includes the launch of their inventory forecasting application, ‘Demand-Driven Inventory Dispositioning’ (D2ID).

Earlier this year, Panalpina and Cardiff Business School started another two-year research project to examine the role 3D printing can play in distributed manufacturing models and global supply chains. The aim is to help Panalpina’s customers identify the right products that could be switched from traditional to new, additive manufacturing techniques such as 3D printing, and produced closer to the end-consumer market.

“The partnership with Panalpina and the various projects that are now combined under the roof of the research center allow our students to work on real-life industry problems, ensuring that our research remains not only relevant for companies, but that it is also translated into commercial solutions,” explains Syntetos. “Many of our students have been recruited by Panalpina to put their ideas into practice. With Cardiff graduates now working in locations such as Panama, Dubai and London, it is great to see our research having an impact across the world.”

About Cardiff Business School

Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, is widely recognised as one of the leading business schools in the UK. In the latest UK Government Research Assessment Exercise, it was ranked fourth in the UK’s 96 business and management schools for the quality of its research, with 35% of its research projects classified as ‘world leading’. It has recently become the first business school in Wales, and the sixth Russell Group institution, to be awarded accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), a hallmark of business school excellence which is awarded to less than 5% of the world’s business schools. It is the largest single School of Cardiff University, itself a Russell Group organisation, and educates over 2,600 students from 60 countries each year.