Offshore wind energy in the North Sea is central to Europe’s energy transition, yet development is slowing amid rising complexity and systemic strain. This thesis investigates the root causes of this stagnation using a systems thinking approach—combining literature review, stakeholder interviews, a Current Reality Tree (CRT), and a Causal Loop Diagram (CLD). The analysis identifies three interconnected systemic causes: Fragmented Energy Governance, Historical Policy Dependence, and Uncoordinated Value Chain Expansion. These factors manifest in permitting delays, financial uncertainty, and supply chain vulnerabilities that reinforce a cycle of underinvestment and delayed deployment. Offshore wind development is categorized across the value chain, financial structure, and global supply network to capture the sector’s evolution and current bottlenecks. Current policy efforts remain insufficient and reactive. To overcome stagnation, the study recommends coordinated interventions: harmonized permitting, accelerated infrastructure investment, inflation-proof financing, and domestic supply chain strengthening. These strategies aim to reverse negative feedback loops and re-enable sustainable growth, securing the North Sea’s role in Europe’s renewable energy future.

Containerized transport has emerged as a pivotal mode of transportation in global trade, which accounted for approximately 60% of total global trade volume. A core challenge within the shipping industry today is the issue of trade imbalances, which are rooted in factors such as gaps in income levels between domestic and foreign markets, variations in wage-bargaining structures, trade policies, and geopolitical tensions. The implications of trade imbalances are shown in regional surpluses and deficits. Surplus regions reflect a higher volume of imports than exports, which results in the accumulated containers used from sea transport. In contrast, deficit regions experience higher export volume than imports, which results in less containers available to transport goods due to less container input from import activities.
These imbalances significantly impact shipping companies' revenue, as they are required to meet container demand in deficit areas to capture customer demand across all regions. A commonly adopted strategy to address this challenge is empty repositioning, which involves relocating empty containers from surplus regions to deficit regions. However, this practice is associated with the trade-off of adding higher additional costs without generating direct significant revenue in the short-term for shipping companies.
Maersk, a leading player in the industry and acts as the case study for this research, also faces trade imbalance issues. Currently, Maersk prioritizes the demand from the deficit region, which is Far East (such as China), specifically Far East to Europe journey, which represents the journey with the highest revenue contribution in its operations. However, Maersk, especially the Equipment Flow team, who are in charge of planning the container allocation in European trade, wants to confirm whether their current approach is optimal or needs further improvement. . This thesis project aims to confirm whether the strategy they implemented in 2023 (reflected in Alternatives 1) is better than prioritizing the containers allocation to deficit regions, which is Far East (Alternatives 2).
The insights derived from this study are expected to contribute to a broader understanding of how shipping companies can manage their strategies in container allocation in response to trade imbalances. By examining these alternatives, the research seeks to provide actionable recommendations to address how they should allocate their containers in case of trade imbalances, ultimately supporting shipping companies in navigating this long-standing challenge more effectively.
The analysis of the alternative’s evaluation shows that overall total revenue when prioritizing empty container allocation to deficit regions compared to maintaining the export level alternative shows minimal effect due to the slight differences in both total revenues. In terms of total revenues, maintaining export level alternative’s (Alternative 1) yield slightly higher total revenues. However, if we look at the range of total revenues generated in Far East after curtailment, prioritizing empty containers to deficit regions depicted (Alternative 2) slightly higher range compared to Alternative 1 with the increase on total revenue’s range about 0.75%. However, this increase is not significant compared to the annual growth of revenue in the shipping industry which accounts for 2.7% per year (Cargo Shipping Market Revenue, 2024). In addition to the small increase in total revenue range in Alternative 2, the variation of total revenue in each region also increases. In the context of seasonality, the data distribution in Africa and Latin Africa shows no significant difference when performing Alternative 2. Far East and North America are affected by the seasonality due to their higher volume of trade. Amid these notable differences, seasonality does not affect the range of revenue in each region, but it makes the revenue more stable due to the nature of high contractual customer percentage in Maersk. This nature makes the demand more predictable.

This thesis investigates the impact of stakeholder characteristics on the market adoption of standards within the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) sector. It consists of a literature review, an empirical analysis, exploration of influence mechanisms and a discussion on the results. There are three main topics that are discussed in this thesis: Standardisation is a cooperation among industry, consumers, public authorities and other interested parties for the development of technical specifications; Stakeholders are organisations or individuals that have an interest or influence in the standardisation process. Stakeholders can be entities like customers, investors, and governments. Theory (de Vries et al., 2003) points out that a balanced representation of stakeholders is vital for the quality of standards; The Internet of Things (IoT) involves devices and systems that (need to) communicate and operate seamlessly together. This requirement for interoperability has led to a significant number of standards and protocols competing for dominance. This thesis focuses on Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). IIoT shows great potential in industrial application, for example in harbours, production facilities, and warehouses.

The literature review explores academic sources like Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and SciSearch. The search strategy included keywords focusing on standardisation, stakeholder influence, and IIoT to identify studies commenting on the respective (or interplay of) these factors. From these studies, it was revealed that large multinational corporations dominate standardisation processes, often imposing proprietary standards that inhibit interoperability, limit accessibility, and create barriers for smaller entities. Regulatory bodies, while central to ensuring standards align with public interests, frequently struggle to keep pace with rapid technological evolution, leaving significant gaps in security, data privacy, and compatibility. Additionally, literature showed us that common standards are difficult to reach due to problems with stakeholder infrastructure, as multiple researchers have laid foundation to further research stakeholder infrastructures in standardisation. Hence the reason this thesis will aim to investigate the patterns that stakeholder characteristics and infrastructure have with the emergence of common standards. This led to the main research question:

• To what extent do stakeholder characteristics influence the development of technological standards in industrial IoT?"

To answer the main research question, two sub-questions were formulated:

• How does the classification of stakeholders—organized into a matrix based on their levels of power, legitimacy, and urgency—affect the emergence of technological standards in IIoT?

• How can policymakers, researchers, or businesses influence stakeholders to shape the standardization process in Industrial IIoT?

The first sub question aims to be answered by an empirical analysis. This analysis focusses on eight IIoT standardisation cases across the four different phases in IIoT: data ingestion (where IIoT sensors collect data from the environment, like temperature), data transmission (where data is transmitted to a local or cloud solution), data processing (where data is processed, e.g. aggregated or decrypted), and data utilisation (which often involves human-computer interaction and an application: presents dashboards \& insights). For each phase, two standards were selected, one with market adoption and one without. The cases were:

1) Data Ingestion:\\
• RFID UHF (adopted)\\
• Zephyr Project (not adopted)

2) Data Transmission:\\
• LoRaWAN (adopted)\\
• Sigfox (not adopted)

3) Data Processing:\\
• EPCIS (adopted)\\
• UPnP (not adopted)

4) Data Utilisation:\\
• Ignition (adopted)\\
• GE Predix (not adopted)

The methodology employed an approach based on de Vries et al. (2003), using nine search directions, like production firms, end-users and regulators. After identification of the stakeholders, they are classified according to their power, legitimacy, and urgency in the standardisation process. The research combined desk research, case studies, and expert interviews to gather data about stakeholder characteristics. The extensive empirical research led to a collection of sixteen tables showing the involved stakeholders and their power, urgency and legitimacy to the standard. This output was summarised in a large table to detect patterns in whether certain types of stakeholders contributed positively or negatively to the market adoption of a standard. The patterns that arise from the empirical analysis are:

1) End-user engagement is essential: End users and related organisations are more prevalent in standards with market adoption. Their involvement as dominant or definitive stakeholders contributes significantly to the adoption and implementation of the standard.

2) Dangerous stakeholders hinder adoption: In 3 out of 4 standards without market adoption, there is at least one dangerous stakeholder. Their presence correlates with the lack of adoption, indicating that stakeholders who have power and urgency but lack legitimacy can create obstacles in the standardisation process.

3) Definitive stakeholders drive market adoption: Standards with market adoption have a higher average number of definitive stakeholders (4) compared to those without market adoption (1.75). This suggests that the involvement of stakeholders possessing power, urgency, and legitimacy is crucial for a standard's success in the market.

4) Higher stakeholder participation in adopted standards: Standards that have been adopted in the market involve more stakeholders on average (11.25) compared to those without market adoption (7.5). Broad stakeholder participation enhances the standard's credibility and acceptance.

5) Absence of stakeholders with only power or urgency: Stakeholders possessing only power (type E) or only urgency (type G) do not appear in the table. This absence indicates that power or urgency alone is insufficient to impact standard adoption.

These patterns are subsequently translated into policy recommendations on how to influence the standardisation process. This was done to answer sub question 2. To influence stakeholders and improve standardisation efforts, the research identified policy recommendations:

1) Stimulating end-user engagement through:\\
• Creating well-established stakeholder groups\\
• Eliminating fees for participation\\
• Offering free consultation on standardisation efforts

2) Managing dangerous stakeholders by:\\
• Finding ways for them to participate with approval from other stakeholders\\
• Implementing review mechanisms through special committees

3) Increasing stakeholder participation by:\\
• Focusing on quality over quantity in standardisation efforts\\
• Providing resources to enhance stakeholder capabilities\\
• Creating regulatory frameworks that prioritise standardisation

The discussion highlights that the findings from this thesis align with previous research emphasising the importance of user engagement. According to a professor expert on the matter, the caveat is that this is only beneficial when users can provide clear, unambiguous requirements. Also, the methodology used in this thesis represents a novel application of de Vries' 2003 stakeholder identification method, particularly in creating a stakeholder/standard matrix. Other than this thesis, the methodology has been applied in a few other scholarly cases and by Professor van de Kaa. At last, the discussion tells that the research contributes to standardisation literature by empirically analysing market adoption across multiple cases. Important aspects are the confirmation of the importance of end-user engagement and the identification of dangerous stakeholders as a threat to standardisation.

Future recommendations of the study include the need for further research on effective methods for involving end-users in standardisation processes, particularly through empirical studies. Also, further investigation of mechanisms to identify and manage dangerous stakeholders is important, as this remains underexplored in current literature. With concerns to the methodology applied, application of the stakeholder identification and classification method across different sectors would validate its broader applicability. Because of the dynamic environment of stakeholders, standardisation and IIoT, longitudinal studies are advised to capture how standards evolve with technological advancement and changing stakeholder dynamics. At last, more research on how to increase stakeholder salience levels and the impact this has on standardisation success is advised.

This thesis investigates the potential for implementing a Close-Loop Supply Chain (CLSC) in the End-of-Life (EOL) management of aircraft cabin seating materials, with the goal of enhancing sustainability within the aerospace industry. As global pressures for sustainability grow, particularly with the target of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, the aerospace sector faces significant challenges in managing the lifecycle of its assets, especially cabin components like seating.
The research begins by outlining key concepts of the Circular Economy, Product End-of-Life, and Reverse Supply Chain, establishing a theoretical foundation for understanding the complexities of integrating circular practices into the aerospace industry. Through a combination of literature review, supply chain analysis, and a case study focused on Airbus, the study identifies key challenges, including the high costs of developing environmentally friendly materials, regulatory barriers, and the complexity of mixed-material components that complicate recycling efforts.
Despite these challenges, the research highlights opportunities for improving sustainability through better collaboration among stakeholders, adoption of advanced technologies, and supportive regulatory frameworks. The thesis concludes with actionable recommendations for implementing CLSC in the aircraft seating supply chain, highlighting the importance of economic incentives, improved material separation processes, and regulatory support. These recommendations aim to reduce environmental impact, promote sustainability, and foster a more circular economy within the aerospace industry. This study contributes valuable insights to the field of sustainable technology management, offering practical solutions for a highly regulated and complex sector.

This thesis addresses the critical challenge of low capacity utilization among firms in Africa, a key indicator of firm performance that remains significantly underdeveloped among firms across the continent. By focusing on value chain integration: domestic (DVC), foreign (FVC), and hybrid (HVC) forms, this research seeks to bridge a crucial gap in understanding how different integration strategies affect the overall performance of firms in Africa. The motivation for focusing on Africa stems from the continent's promising position on the global stage. With Africa hosting the world’s youngest and fastest-growing population, projected to nearly double to 2.5 billion by 2050, along with pioneering innovations, the continent offers vast opportunities for robust and inclusive growth. By leveraging its abundant natural and human resources, Africa has the potential to enhance prosperity both within the continent and globally. However, achieving this potential requires addressing persistent inefficiencies in production, such as low capacity utilization, which this research aims to tackle. While existing literature has extensively explored the benefits of value chain integration on firm performance metrics such as productivity and innovation, there is a lack of focused research on how these benefits translate into improved capacity utilization levels, particularly among firms in Africa. This thesis contributes to the field by introducing the concept of hybrid value chain (HVC) integration, a novel approach that combines elements of both domestic and foreign integration, to examine its impact on capacity utilization. Using data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys, covering 14,823 firms across 36 industries in Africa, the research employs a linear regression model to reveal that DVC integration significantly enhances capacity utilization. In contrast, FVC integration presents challenges that can reduce capacity utilization unless firms bolster their technological capabilities. The findings highlight that firms in Africa can overcome the barriers of foreign integration through technological advancements, which is crucial for improving their competitiveness in global markets. Moreover, the research identifies the detrimental impact of informal competition on capacity utilization, emphasizing the need for strategies that mitigate these pressures. While the study also explores the effects of HVC integration, it acknowledges limitations in its conceptualization, as this form of integration shows a negative impact on capacity utilization, indicating a need for further investigation. Overall, this research fills a gap in the literature by establishing a direct link between value chain integration and capacity utilization in Africa, offering insights that could guide business leaders and policymakers in enhancing overall firm performance across the continent. With Africa's potential for growth and development, improving capacity utilization through effective value chain integration strategies is crucial for unlocking the continent's full economic potential.

This project presents a comprehensive study on the development of Integrated Water and Land-based Transportation (IWLT) Systems for city logistics. The research addresses the growing challenges of urban traffic by proposing a decision model for multi-modal transportation systems that leverages waterways alongside traditional road networks. The problem is defined as a two-echelon multi-trip location routing problem with satellite synchronisation (2E-MTLRP-SS), incorporating capacitated vehicles, multiple depots and time constraints. A decomposition-based decision model is introduced, breaking down the problem into manageable sub-problems interconnected through synchronisation in time, space, and load. The decision model uses metaheuristics to be able to handle large-scale, realistic problems and provide feasible solutions for real-life applications. The model’s effectiveness is demonstrated through a case study in Amsterdam, showing the potential of IWLT systems to reduce congestion-related issues and improve the livability of cities. Different scenarios for the IWLT system are investigated, to assist Amsterdam's system developers in making design choices for implementation. The proposed decision model is widely applicable to multi-modal transportation systems all over the world.

In light of the energy transition and resulting electrification of the energy systems in the Netherlands, Distribution System Operators (DSOs) need to rapidly expand their operations to facilitate consumers. At the same time, their own activities need to become more sustainable as well. One of the important methods for this is integrating the principles of the circular economy in their supply chains (SCs).
This study focuses on designing a circular supply chain (CSC) for the redeployment and recycling of components from the electricity grid. It combines two CSC design methods, the SCOP method and the CSC guiding framework, with the Evolved Double Diamond to guide the design process. Throughout the entire design project other methods are used to generate input or boundaries for the design like qualitative workshops, data analysis, brainstorming and MCDA techniques for evaluation.
As a case study a design project is done for the Dutch DSO Stedin which allows to develop a concrete design, identify key remaining design decisions and develop an elaboration and evaluation framework to guide Stedin in CSC design decision making. In this case study, the focus is on cables and transformers for all voltage levels as these assets are most important in reaching the sustainability targets of Stedin.
The combination of the design methods was helpful in structuring and inspiring the CSC design process but lacks more detailed steps a designer should take. The use of the MCDA in design component decision making instead of alternative evaluation does seem a new and useful technique in CSC design but needs further development.

This paper investigates the uncertainties underlying carbon footprint estimations of freight transportation, with a particular focus on trip-level shipment data. The research aimed to identify and classify possible causes of these uncertainties using Walker’s uncertainty matrix, drawing from literature reviews, protocol analyses, field research, and interviews. Findings suggest that the accuracy and transparency of assumptions are crucial when communicating carbon footprint estimations, as emphasized in current literature. This study contributes to the existing knowledge by providing deeper insights into the influence of uncertainty causes on the final estimation. The primary source of these uncertainties can largely be attributed to data accuracy in the calculation of carbon footprints. A structured approach is proposed to examine potential causes of uncertainties and their potential impacts on the final carbon footprint estimation. To demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach, a case study analyzing three freight movements to a building site was conducted. This research offers valuable insights and a systematic method for addressing uncertainties in carbon footprint estimations, ultimately supporting more informed decision-making in the freight transportation sector.

The current research stems from the motivation of controlling the phenomenon of traffic congestion in urban areas that can be deteriorated due to the implementation of a construction project. Nowadays, it is frequently observed that construction activities in complex urban environments appear undesirable effects on the communities surrounding the location of the construction project having as a focal point the “construction traffic”. Nonetheless, existing studies indicate traffic congestion is a significant contributor to the inefficient management of construction logistics. Unsuccessfully managing a project’s construction logistics is strongly correlated with the unsatisfactory performance of the construction process mostly due to the occurrence of delays in the implementation of the construction activities related to incorrect delivery of building materials and construction equipment. Likewise, inefficient management of construction logistics can lead to unmanageable traffic levels derived from additional transportation volumes related to the construction process. Since the multi-faced issue of traffic congestion can cause both a negative “domino effect” on the construction activities towards the realization of a construction project as well as unfavorable effects on urban city’s living conditions, positively impactful ways ought to be researched for reducing the adverse consequences of uncontrollable traffic. This thesis works for designing and developing a transportation prognosis model that can predict the extra transportation volumes on the location of the construction project due to the transportation activity of the needed vehicles along the construction process, offering an insight into traffic conditions of the examined relevant road. In this way, the designed prognosis model can be used as a proactive tool since it indicates if and when uncontrollable traffic levels can occur.

The global commitment to combating climate change has led to initiatives like the Paris Agreement and the European Commission's 2030 climate target plan. Heineken, aligning with this, has set its own sustainability goals for 2030, aiming for net-zero emissions in its production line and a carbon-neutral value chain by 2040. To address emissions from logistics, Heineken introduced the Net-Zero Logistics program, with a focus on reporting emissions and implementing carbon reduction measures, particularly through increased use of intermodal transport.

Intermodal transport involves using various modes such as roads, railways, and waterways during transportation. Studies suggest that intermodal transport can aid in carbon reduction, aligning with Heineken's sustainability goals. The report aims to assess the impact of intermodal transport on Heineken's emissions, costs, and lead time compared to the current transport mode.

The study's primary objective is to identify opportunities for reducing transport emissions through intermodal transport, considering costs and lead time. A model and methodology were developed for the comparison between road and intermodal transport, utilizing available data.

Emission calculations follow a globally agreed framework, using emission factors per country, modality, and payload. Three methods are outlined based on the availability of intermodal transport data. The first relies on existing intermodal transport data, while the second uses locations of intermodal hubs when specific data is unavailable. The third method employs open-source data to identify intermodal hubs and is applied in regions like Africa.

Costs are determined through two methods: an internal intermodal pre-tender for Europe and average historical transport rates per kilometer for the U.S. and Africa. Lead time is calculated using intermodal databases when available or average transport speeds multiplied by distance with added dwell time.

Experiments were conducted on Heineken's existing transport routes with variations in region, lane distance, and transshipment hub distance. Findings from 34 experiments suggest that intermodal transport can reduce emissions and costs on distances exceeding 600 km. Additionally, for shorter distances, savings are possible if the first and last mile distance is below 30% of the total intermodal distance.

The study identifies that longer lanes show more significant reduction potential, especially in the U.S. where substantial opportunities remain untapped. Intermodal costs in the USA and Ethiopia should be verified with carriers for accuracy. The report recommends Heineken focus on longer lanes and explore integrated tools for real-time transport data analysis.

In conclusion, intermodal transport offers Heineken the potential to achieve its sustainability goals, with the report providing valuable insights into emissions, costs, and lead time comparisons. Future research could expand the analysis to more routes globally or within local operating companies, refining input values in collaboration with carriers.

The efficiency of a logistic service provider's network can be improved by implementing a receiver-led consolidation policy. This policy means that shipments destined to the same location are consolidated in one truck. The literature states that by doing this the costs, CO2 emissions and number of vehicle movements can be reduced. However, consolidating shipments towards hospitals is complex due to the fact that medication is a highly regulated product and non-regulated products are also needed at the hospitals. 
Furthermore, from the stakeholder analysis, it became apparent that such receiver-led consolidation policy is also favorable for hospitals. The efficiency of the operating practices in the logistics department in hospitals can be improved by reducing the number of deliveries. However, from the literature became apparent that the knowledge on the effects of a receiver-led consolidation technique implemented in a logistics service provider's network is still lacking. Especially on how receiver-led consolidation can improve the efficiency of a logistic service provider's network and how this affects the other stakeholders. This problem is stated in the following main research question: What is the impact of receiver-led consolidation alternatives in the PostNL supply chain with respect to trade-offs between costs, CO2 emissions and vehicle movements between PostNL and other stakeholders? In order to find an answer to this research question, a case study for the logistics service provider PostNL is carried out. PostNL has several networks that deliver shipments. However, mostly the Cargo, Pharma\&Care and Mikropakket network deliver shipments to hospitals. It appeared that these three networks barely work together which results in overlap between destination addresses. This means that two or more networks can make a delivery to a certain address on the exact same date. Furthermore, the Pharma\&Care network is meant for large deliveries. However, it sometimes occurs that this networks makes a stop for just one or two colli. This is an expensive stop in comparison to the Mikropakket network. Therefore, a conceptual model of the current data-processing system of PostNL is created. After brainstorm sessions and discussions with PostNL employees, it became apparent that many bottlenecks originate from this process. Therefore, a discrete event simulation model is created that captures this model. 
Furthermore, two design alternatives have been proposed to improve the efficiency in the current system. The two design alternatives that have been created are: (1) integrating the processes of different networks and (2) implementing a smart planning process which controls the data sets of all networks. In the first alternative, all shipments are checked on a pre-defined list. If the destination address is present on this list, the shipments are redirected to the Pharma\&Care network. Otherwise, the shipments continue in their original process. The second alternative, consolidates all shipments of all networks in a certain network, based on their characteristics. These design alternatives have also been implemented in a discrete event simulation model. 
The data obtained from PostNL has been used to measure the effects of the design alternatives on the current system. When analyzing the results obtained from the simulation model, it can be seen that the overlap, the number of stops, operating costs and CO2 emissions have been reduced in both design alternatives compared to the current system. The second design alternative yields the highest benefits. However, this alternative is expected to be more difficult to implement in the current system of PostNL. 
Moreover, the analysis of the output data has also shown positive outcomes for the other two core stakeholders (hospitals and suppliers of end-products). According to the stakeholder analysis, the outcomes of the second design alternative are more favorable. To conclude, implementing a receiver-led consolidation policy in a logistics service provider network yields many benefits with respect to the efficiency. The overlap between networks on destination addresses, the number of stops, the operating costs and the CO2 emissions are reduced. Since, the second design alternative scores highest on all aspects, it is recommended to PostNL that this alternative is implemented. This way, all shipments are consolidated over the three networks and the efficiency of the logistics service providers network is improved the most.

The fourth industrial revolution is changing the way of working and manufacturing in multiple ways. The increasing digitalization of business processes makes employees more productive, lowers costs for firms, reduces the environmental footprint of the companies, and improves the quality of services. While born-digital companies built their business process around digital opportunities by default, many large traditional companies are lagging behind in digitalization. This work aims to raise awareness of the opportunities of the digital world for the employees of large pre-digital era companies. This study was conducted at Nutricia, the subsidiary of Danone, focusing explicitly on the Deployment team, which was treated as a service provider. This work tackles the digitalization problem by developing a serious game to be played by the company's employees. To design this game, the first activity was a systematic literature review conducted to investigate the earlier applications of serious games for digitalization in supply chains. This leads to the identification of a significant research gap, as it was concluded that no serious game was developed with the purpose of initiating business process digitalization in companies. This project builds on the design science approach in the context of digitalization. An artifact was developed based on requirements collected as the first step to reach the design objective. The list of requirements was obtained based on further literature studies about digitalization and background on gaming. After the literature review, a case study was conducted on the Deployment department of Nutricia that defines additional requirements for the game design. Initially, additional knowledge was collected about the company's organization and supply chain, followed by a focused analysis of the Deployment department's business processes. Second, a survey was conducted to assess the awareness of employees amongst six planners and the team lead. The outcome confirms the need for a serious game at Nutricia as employees find digitalization beneficial; however, they lack ideas on how to continue with the digital transformation of their process. Thus, it specifies the game's design objective: the aim is to raise awareness for employees on the digitalization opportunities at the company, including how to do it and how to benefit from it. Furthermore, the results can also support the process selection and function as data input for the game design process. The most suitable business process was selected for the game in terms of showing players the digitalization opportunities. The final game design, called DigiGame, consists of two phases. Players puzzle the business process from given building blocks in the first phase and digitalize it in phase two using the available technologies. Besides completing daily tasks, participants need to select a step of the business process they want to digitalize. Then, the player is shown a hint regarding the applicable technology, which is guessed by the other player based on the description given by the initiator. The digital maturity of the process is represented by a heat map and an overall digitalization level indicator. The game is won when all technologies have been applied. Five game sessions took place, with altogether ten employees from the company. A game session consisted of a short introduction, the gameplay, and a debriefing session. After the completion of all sessions, a collaborative debriefing session took place to discuss further insights with the whole team. The game sessions were evaluated qualitatively based on transcripts. The prepared documents were coded, categorized, and networks were created with the Atlas.ti software. DigiGame, the developed artifact, provided a solution for an open business need at Nutricia, resulting in the primary practical contribution of this work. Employees became more aware of the advantages of a digital business process and already started thinking about implementation details after discussing a conceptional implementation plan. Moreover, the game session contributed to the organizational learning at Nutricia. Considering the theoretical contributions, the research confirmed the results of earlier work regarding the high potential of using serious games for raising awareness. Additionally, it was proven that a game could provide a digital mindset and introduce the opportunities of digital transformation in a business context to non-IT-focused employees, providing answers to open questions introduced by multiple previous works. Overall, it can be concluded that DigiGame successfully raised awareness on the digitalization opportunities at Nutricia for most players. The game was most effective for players who had experience with the analyzed process. Some players acquired a digital mindset during the game session and considered other business processes for digitalization options. While inexperienced players obtained little knowledge about digitalization opportunities, they stated that they had learned a lot about the process itself. Notably, no previous work revealed similar observations. Thus, it can be concluded that the game sessions contributed to the development of the participants in a diverse way. The main limitation of the game is that in the current form, it is applicable to Nutricia's process only; however, it was designed keeping in mind simple adaptability to alternative business processes. Future research is proposed in the direction of a more general game that can be adopted easier to multiple companies. Additionally, evaluating the game on a larger sample is also the subject of interest.

This thesis investigates different ways in which the productivity of a one-way bottling and packaging production line can be increased. This is done by comparing different configurations regarding machine capacities, machine reliability and buffer capacities with each other. This is done with both the use of a generic model and a case study. The different configurations were compared and combined together with the use of a simulation model. Following from this it can be concluded that it is dependent on the reliability and the machine capacities which shape of protective capacity is the most productive. Besides, also the place in the system where the largest amount of buffer capacity needs to be placed is dependent on the reliability of the machines which are part of the production line.

The water crisis is one of the most important global risks influencing humanity. Urbanization as well as economic, social and technological evolution have led to water overconsumption across the world and thus to water scarcity. Industry comprises one of the main water consumers along with agriculture and municipalities. At the same time, industry constitutes a significant water polluter since a large amount of its wastewater does not receive treatment prior to its disposal to the environment. One of the greatest sources of wastewater is brine effluent, a hypersaline concentrate created during the water treatment in the industries. In an effort to tackle the challenges that brine effluent imposes, both in terms of management and costs, the process industry should shift to technical solutions that foster sustainable development. There are three dimensions with respect to sustainability; the environmental, the economic and the social. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as well as Life Cycle Costing (LCC), both of which are the main axis of this thesis, are tools for identifying and analyzing environmental and economic impacts respectively. The object of this thesis is the Zero Brine (ZB) project which promotes a closed-loop approach to address the complex brine effluents by eliminating them, mitigating the effects of industrial processes while recovering materials such as water, energy, minerals, magnesium, and salts. This research is focusing on the Dutch case study where the assessment of a demineralized water production system before and after the implementation of ZB applications is taking place. The evaluation of sustainability performance comprises one of the main goals of this project. Thus, this thesis aims to assess the environmental and economic sustainability of the ZB project by implementing the LCA and LCC techniques. To that end, the parallel implementation of LCA and LCC was performed. Furthermore, the three types of LCC; conventional (cLCC), environmental (eLCC) and societal (sLCC), were also included in the analysis. The results of the analysis showed that the implementation of the ZB system has ambiguous results concerning environmental performance. On the one hand, the majority of the environmental impacts were decreased by 15% to 22%, On the other hand, global warming, acidification as well as particulate matter formation categories were sharply increased by more than 100%. From the economic assessment results, it was concluded that the application of ZB design is not financially viable since it degrades the economic performance of the current production scheme. By estimating the NPV after the implementation of ZB applications, it was observed that it is negative thus rendering the project unsustainable Overall, to enhance the environmental and economic performance of ZB applications, more research required to tackle the abovementioned issues and to render ZB project a sustainable, industrially applicable solution for the treatment of brine and the recovery of valuable resources.

Repetitive construction projects allow for planning to be done systematically, but performance is hard to predict due to inherent uncertainties. The goal of this research is to evaluate planning choices in repetitive construction projects. In order to evaluate the planning of these projects to quantify the risk of overruns, an adaptable digitized model is needed which can run realistic probabilistic simulations. The model was supplemented with realistic effects such as probabilistic distributions and learning curves to represent the inherent uncertainties in the progression of the project. The model is able to estimate the total duration of a project, the time-dependent costs and resource utilization percentage. Even more so, the model was used to give an estimation of the risk of overruns as a probability. The model has been used to evaluate decisions that can be taken when planning a project. To test how these planning decisions affect the project outcomes, they were tested in a test case set-up. The influence of one planning decision was increased and the outcomes measured. These planning decisions consist of 1) the use of multiple resources crews per process, 2) the use of batching, 3) using time buffers and 4) multiskilled crews. For decreasing the project duration, extra crews can be added. Time-dependent costs are decreased by adding buffers or working with larger batches. Improving the utilization percentage is done by using multiskilled crews and adding buffers. The results are relative and can be interpreted as rules of thumb, but are indicative of the power of planning decisions to steer project performance without altering the scope or the construction method. To show that the model indeed corresponds to these rules of thumb, they were applied in two projects, yielding promising results, both for total duration and time-dependent costs. Using the understanding of the effects of planning decisions, repetitive construction projects can be improved to increase productivity and decrease time-dependent costs significantly.