The majority of products that are consumed in Europe are no longer manufactured there for cost reasons. European manufacturers are forced with higher wages and higher associated production costs. It is now necessary to find new areas of competitive advantage, to include efficient processes, high quality and short reaction times. The EU- founded ILIPT project has set a goal in developing a technical and logistic concept for a car that can be delivered to the customer 5 days after their order at the dealership.

As a researcher at the Leuphana University Lüneburg, Dr. Schaffer has been a member of this 5 day car project. The focus of his activities have been the investigation of cost structures regarding product and process complexity as well as the managing and handling of variety in production processes.

In cooperation with PUC University in Brazil activities have been also carried out to analyse the transferability of the results to emerging markets.

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