Partnership bags ‘outstanding’ KTP accolade

Cardiff University and Panalpina have notched up a second ‘outstanding’ knowledge transfer success.

The global logistics company teamed up with Cardiff Business School five years ago to work out more efficient business inventories.

The resulting Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) proved so successful it was renewed to focus on new manufacturing technologies such as inventories resulting from 3D printing.

The expanded project, which began in 2016, led Panalpina to double its investment in the KTP, using Cardiff’s expertise to help customers identify the right products to switch to manufacturing techniques such as 3D printing.

“The whole project has proved an amazing success,” said Professor Aris Syntetos, Panalpina Chaired Professor of Manufacturing and Logistics at Cardiff Business School.

The work has been recognised as ‘outstanding’ in a letter from Innovate UK – the UK Government department which has forged KTPs across the country for more than 40 years.

The project was achieved thanks to the hard work of KTP research associates Fevos Charalampidis and Rishi (Hrishikesh) Pawar. They were supervised by Dr Xun (Paul) Wang and Dr Franck Lacan from Cardiff’s School of Engineering.

Fevos said: “The KTP offered the best possible transition for me from my studies into industry. It was a very exciting and challenging project right from the beginning since it was also a new venture for Panalpina. Developing a solution combining academic rigour and industrial practicality was the main challenge of the project, which also provided an invaluable learning experience.”

Rishi added: “It was a great opportunity for me as a fresh graduate – and particularly exciting as only limited research has been done on this topic. The challenges we faced were shared by many industries, so finding a solution which has use in real life was particularly rewarding.”

Paul Thomas, Business Manager with Research, Innovation and Enterprise Services at Cardiff University, said: “It’s another great success story in our long history of working with companies through the KTP scheme.

“The University has put together more than 200 KTPs with both small and global organisations since the scheme started in the 1970s, adding tangible value to industry and the UK economy. We’ve helped our KTP partners tackle a range of issues, from boosting productivity to transforming strategy and developing innovation.  

Panalpina now offers new forecasting and 3DP capabilities to customers, and supports the Panalpina Centre for Manufacturing and Logistics Research at Cardiff Business School.

The partnership brings the University benefits through sponsorship and funding, but also provides ‘real life’ case studies for use in our postgraduate courses, offering researchers a taste of the business world.

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