What is a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering doing at Marketing?
I think it has to do with integration. At university I researched integration of technology, environment and economy in energy planning. At Carmen, I’ve been running our project on integrated operations control, and also done consultancy work with integrating the crew planning process. At Marketing, much of our focus is on business development. To a great extent, that means placing our existing products and services in an integrated frame-work, and developing strategies for further development.

Have you seen any change in the airlines' demand for new products since the downturn of the industry?
Yes, the requirements on return on investment are much stricter today. But products that can meet those requests are heavily in demand. Return on investment for our products is short and relatively easy to measure. The inherent flexibility of the products also helps our clients to stay in control, even during periods of change as the one we are undergoing now. We have also seen that the airlines are looking for ways to measure productivity.

Focussing on productivity and measuring costs sounds like a natural thing to do. Don't airlines already do this?
Productivity at a high level, like dollars per RPK, is always measured. But to break down overall productivity figures and identify cost drivers is not that simple. For example, if you lose a lot in productivity between pairing and rostering, it may be because of flaws in the rostering process, but it might also be so that the pairings are impossible to assign effectively. Among our clients we are seeing a stronger interest from management to use our tools to measure and analyze the planning process. In general, there is a growing demand for advanced services. For Singapore Airlines we produce their seasonal pairings as a service bureau.

The examples from Carmen Consulting show the range of services that we can provide. For any problem regarding resource optimzation for airlines and railways Carmen can provide a solution for any resource optimization problem that airlines and railways have, either as products or services, for fleet or crew, for longterm planning or for day-of-operation.

Talking about operation, apart from the fleet products you are also responsible for Carmen's products for operations control. You must be proud of the new solvers now being released.
Oh yes, when we started the development of an integrated operations control system together with British Airways and the Technical University of Denmark, we hoped that we could have some deliveries during the project. But having two solvers available already is much more than we expected. The passenger solver allows the recovery options to be evaluated from a business perspective, while the fleet recovery solver makes sure that the chosen solution does not jeopardize stability or escalate costs to much. This is one part in focussing on productivity – to be able to follow cost indicators from planning through the execution on the day of operation.