The company PALFINGER AG is a loyal and extremely committed cooperation partner in practical projects with the MRM department.
Objective of the practical project
The main goal of the “Recycle and Relocate” project was market research on the existing recycling and disposal systems in the core markets of Germany, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Switzerland and Great Britain.
Method
After the kick-off meeting at the Palfinger headquarters in Bergheim, the student team divided the individual activities into work packages and determined the respective responsibilities. “To achieve the project goal and simplify the task a bit, we as a team decided to divide the core markets among the project team members,” recalls Carina. In addition to a desktop search, expert interviews were conducted with various manufacturers on the numbers, data and facts of the current situations in the core markets. The project team developed a guideline to maintain the focus of market research. “The telephone interviews were a very challenging activity – it was difficult to get quantitative data from competitors on the current market,” says Laura. Foreign language skills were very helpful here to obtain to the desired information.
To validate the results obtained, they were checked for plausibility in a further step with PALFINGER’s respective distribution partners. The project team was given contact details, and the distribution partners were also informed in advance. “Due to the geographical proximity to Germany, we even managed to arrange a personal meeting with the managing director of PALFINGER Ainring. From this personal conversation we were able to collect a lot of useful information for our project,” says Michael. The information validated in this way was prepared for each country and supplemented with possible trends.
Results
In addition to a presentation of the market shares and a comparison of the main competitors, the final report and the presentation also addressed many of the peculiarities of the individual countries. As an example, three important docking systems are named in the Netherlands: Kinshofer system, Metro system and Gejo system (see figure).
The discussions with the sales partners also identified very interesting trends in the different countries. “The future of the recycling industry will see increasing digitalization. Furthermore, the future will continue to develop in the direction of Big Data – Intelligent networking of the dustbin. A trend can also be seen in so-called “underfloor” systems. There is a shortage of space, especially in cities, and here a recycling system that “disappears” into the ground offers very good conditions,” says student Said.
General information
Project owner:
Markus Absmanner
Project coach:
Arno Kinzinger
Project leader:
Carina Schönegger
Project team members: Michael Hotter, Laura Kendler, Said Hasanovic