“Lantmännen Unibake was a perfect case company for my master thesis”
It is a company that strives towards a more sustainable food industry – thus, a more sustainable world – I would definitely recommend future master students to find a company like Lantmännen Unibake to collaborate with, says Amanda Lindahl MSc Industrial Engineering and Management.
Amanda Lindahl recently handed in her thesis on Industry 4.0 that will be published by the beginning of the autumn. The thesis is the result of a close collaboration with Lantmännen Unibake on a real-life case study. Amanda describes her collaboration with Lantmännen Unibake and her visits to the bakeries in Estonia, Poland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Belgium as truly rewarding experiences:
A complex company that makes the study a “one-of-a-kind”
“I found Lantmännen Unibake to be an interesting case study, because it has great potential and economical scale; they have grown a lot over the past years organically and through acquisitions of bakeries on several continents. Today, the company holds a position as the second largest bakery company in Europe. Thus, they have become a company characterized by a high degree of cultural diversity within the corporate framework of “One Unibake". Thinking, acting and being global will be a key factor for Lantmännen Unibake’s further success. It also adds a very interesting cultural aspect and complexity to the master thesis. I was able to explore different bakeries with various levels of technological maturity, and so I was able to see production sites in “colours”, instead of experiencing only one factory in “black and white”.
Regarding the subject, I was personally motivated to write about the future in my master thesis, because the future is where my career will unfold. Asking myself, what is the hottest topic right now, I realized that I wanted to investigate a new buzzword, “Industry 4.0” – What is it all about?* Lantmännen Unibake did not know much about it, and neither did I, but we were very excited about the idea.
We wanted to investigate how Industry 4.0 tools can be used to improve a global food-supply-chain? In other words, the purpose of my thesis has been to conduct a pre-study and research how Lantmännen Unibake can adapt to the new industrial revolution. What tools and ideas can they use and apply from the research area of Industry 4.0 to improve the company further? In addition, analysis implied that several tools will be possible to implement in the future - and actually some of them partially today.”
Many good reasons to write your paper in collaboration with Lantmännen
“I would definitely recommend Lantmännen Unibake as a collaboration partner for future master students! Lantmännen Unibake and its owner Lantmännen are interesting companies with a strong ownership structure: The owners are purpose driven farmers, farmers with a greater cause, not only shareholders on the stock market demanding fast financial growth, and Lantmännen Unibake have succeeded in keeping local spirit despite its comprehensive growth! The different cultures and all the engaged employees makes it a perfect company for students like myself, and I have experienced that they are passionate about new ideas, deriving from young people: I have inspired them as they have certainly inspired me – that is a very good starting point for a collaboration.
On top of all this: Every person I met was nice and helpful and greeted me with open arms. I had two great supervisors from Lantmännen Unibake, Olli Lavikka and Gianni Malfait. While Olli took care of all the practical things and made things happen, Gianni has been a great inspiration and motivation all through the process and our many brainstorming sessions. To have these two very approachable people made things very easy. It has been a great experience all together!”
*Industry 4.0 is the latest, on-going, industrial revolution, or paradigm shift, originating from the German Government. Since it is on-going, it is close to impossible to describe, however, it can in short be described as “How all objects (machinery, people, products, tools etc.) can be connected to each and talk to each other to ensure data exchange – i.e. starting to get self-learning. In the end, the goal is to be able to use real-time data to make fast accurate autonomous decisions and accurate analysis.