This graduation thesis presents a human-centered design strategy to enhance KLM’s departure experience in Departure Hall 2 at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol by 2040. In response to rising passenger expectations, growing operational complexity, and the need to balance premium service with cost-efficiency, the project envisions a departure hall that creates confidence for passengers, while changing the role of Passenger Service Agents (PSAs). Using the Double Diamond and Design Roadmapping methodologies, the thesis identifies key challenges for passengers and agents and change drivers.

As a result, a Future Vision and Vision Concept are created; the KLM Care Center, which changes the layout in departure hall, makes use of Care Tables, and wearable support tools. These interventions address challenges around agent engagement, passenger uncertainty, and information gaps. Final validation through 3D prototyping and user testing confirms the concept’s potential to improve clarity, confidence, and emotional engagement. A strategic roadmap guides implementation through 3 horizons, balancing innovation with organizational preparations. The thesis offers a concrete, actionable vision aligning KLM’s brand values with the evolving needs of passengers.

Schiphol Airport is facing a growing challenge: enabling independent mobility for Passengers with Reduced Mobility (PRM) in an environment where the number of passengers increases and ongoing staff becomes more limited. Every day, over 2,500 PRM passengers rely on assistance services, a number that continues to grow by 15–20% annually. At the same time, there is a clear shift in expectations: more and more PRM travelers are seeking autonomy, flexibility, and clarity in their journey.

This graduation project identifies this tension as an opportunity to introduce innovative mobility solutions at Schiphol Airport.

The central question that emerged was: How can a service be designed that enables PRM passengers with light mobility restrictions to use a wheelchair independently at Schiphol, and how can this service be communicated clearly and attractively?

Following the Double Diamond design process, the project began by uncovering systemic barriers during the Discover phase: fragmented information, poorly located wheelchair stations, rigid assistance protocols, and a lack of autonomy for users wishing to travel independently. Furthermore, the current service landscape was found to fall short in meeting the diverse needs of users who vary in age, physical abilities, cultural background, and digital literacy.

In response, six design criteria were established during the Define phase to guide the solution:

- The service must support autonomy,
- Provide complete and timely information,
- Be universally accessible,
- Integrate seamlessly into the airport infrastructure,
- Be operationally reliable and well-managed, and
- Remain adaptable to external developments such as new technologies or changing regulations.

These criteria led to the development of a service model that incorporates the organizational structure, the communication approach, and the strategic positioning of facilities into the design of two core elements: an interactive navigation tool and a network of Service Hubs. Together, these tools enable users to independently access mobility support, receive real-time information, and navigate the airport with confidence.

Simultaneously, the model strengthens internal clarity around responsibilities, allows for scalability, and embeds the solution within the broader airport ecosystem. It is designed to be future-proof, providing space for external changes and growth in response to evolving technologies, policies, and user needs.

The proposed concept was validated through scenario testing and stakeholder collaboration. It proved not only feasible but also highly relevant to both passengers and the organization, forming a solid foundation for implementing a hybrid mobility strategy across the airport.

This project demonstrates how thoughtful, strategic design can support both operational efficiency and inclusive passenger experience. Schiphol takes a step forward in redefining airport accessibility, not as a luxury, but as a fundamental right for every traveler.

Like many other organizations, Royal Schiphol Group (RSG) faces a persistent challenge of strategy myopia: urgent operational demands overshadow long‑term strategic ambitions. A clear example is RSG’s vision to become a multimodal transport hub (MTH): despite its strategic importance, it is mentioned only a handful of times in recent annual reports and has failed to gain organizational traction. This reflects a broader issue at RSG: strategic initiatives consistently lack the visibility, momentum, and broad organizational support they need.

The objective of this research was to explore the organizational dynamics that influence why some strategic initiatives at RSG successfully move from margin to mainstream and others stall.

A qualitative approach was used, combining unstructured interviews with employees (N=11) across strategic, operational, and innovation roles, and three generative design workshops mapping timelines of past change initiatives. Thematic analysis revealed three themes: (1) The duality of urgency: both necessary and unfavorable for strategic change, (2) misalignment between long‑term strategy and day‑to‑day operations and (3) the importance of clear ownership and influence of key stakeholders.

The insights showed that fragmented urgency perceptions among RSG employees prevents strategic initiatives from gaining traction. Long‑term projects often fail to align with the immediate priorities of influential decision‑makers, resulting in low urgency and minimal stakeholder involvement.

To address this challenge, this thesis introduces a way‑of‑working that:

1. Identifies and maps key internal stakeholders, distinguishing those with the greatest influence over the initiative.
2. Assesses the perceived urgency of influential stakeholders
3. Sorts all internal stakeholders into one of four actionable engagement strategies: Use commotion for promotion; limit attention; keep Involved; build urgency & gain buy‑in:

The tactical foundation of the design ensures resistance is perceived as valuable, buy-in efforts are targeted on high‑impact stakeholders first, and leverages commotion to generate broader awareness for strategic initiatives.

Usability testing showed that the decision flow is clear, structured, and easy to use. Participants quickly understood the yes/no structure. Scenario testing confirmed the tool’s practicality, relevance, and ability to bring clarity to complex internal stakeholder environments.

This research contributes to the practice of organizational change by designing a repeatable, actionable way-of-working, that enables RSG employees to systematically align stakeholder urgency with tailored engagement strategies and thereby move marginal ideas into mainstream organizational priorities.

This project addresses the challenge of developing a clear and actionable product vision for Kalkhoff, a bicycle manufacturer, in the evolving landscape of sustainable mobility. The project leverages a structured design approach grounded in the context of Hamburg, Germany, a major European city committed to promoting cycling.

By employing a double diamond design process, the project explores future mobility trends, user needs, and competitor strategies. This analysis informs the creation of a future scenario for sustainable urban mobility in Hamburg by 2035. The scenario serves as a foundation for developing product concepts that address user needs and align with market demands.
The project utilizes co-creation with stakeholders and prototyping to refine the concepts. Ultimately, the project delivers three product concepts, a functional prototype of the most promising concept, and a strategic roadmap for product development. These outputs serve as boundary objects, enabling Kalkhoff to visualize its future product strategy and navigate the opportunities within sustainable mobility.

This project contributes to the field of design research by demonstrating a user-centred approach to product vision development in the context of sustainable mobility. The project's methodology and deliverables provide a valuable framework for companies seeking to innovate and differentiate themselves in a rapidly changing market.

Challenges of supplier engagement in early stage technology development in the context of hydrogen propulsion equipment development for aircraft are uncovered. The challenges are viewed from the perspective of the engineering team members within the Liquid Hydrogen storage and distribution department in Airbus’ ZEROe project. A qualitative action research approach is taken to gain an in-depth understanding of the context and the stakeholders’ perspectives. Through interviews, observational studies, and document analysis, a code base is developed and analysed.

At the highest abstraction level, the analysis finds that uncertainty around hydrogen technologies for aviation drives the supplier engagement challenges. When requirements, specifications, deliverables, and development timelines are uncertain, suppliers are in many cases unable to engage. Concretely, the technological uncertainty leads the engineers to be overly cautious in the development of their equipment’s requirements. Over-caution leads to very challenging or impossible requirements which overload suppliers, especially non-aerospace suppliers. This ultimately leads to unsuccessful engagement, limiting the learning potential. Consequently, the lack of learning fuels the uncertainty in a perpetual positive feedback loop.

This research proposes two roadmaps detailing behavioural change through a ‘mindset shift’ of the internal stakeholders to break the uncertainty-fueled cycle mentioned above. The roadmaps link the ZEROe developments until 2030 with the value proposition to suppliers, assets and processes, and the development deliverables. Additionally, the research findings are implemented in the communication materials the engineers use during the Request For Technical Information (RFTI) phase towards suppliers. Through using lessons learned from earlier engagements, the requested RFTI process deliverables are tailored. By building up the technical complexity and load throughout the development, suppliers are less overwhelmed at the start, improving the chances of successful engagements.

This thesis aims to design baggage solutions for Air-Rail resulting in an implementation roadmap that offers multiple baggage solutions to improve the Air-Rail service between Brussel Zuid train station and Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.

The Dutch government aims to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses in the aviation industry. This incentive resulted in a collaboration called the ‘Actieagenda Trein en Luchtvaart’. Their ambition is to strengthen international trains, by making them more attractive alternatives to short-haul flights. Specifically, the route between Amsterdam Airport Schiphol and Brussel Zuid train station. On this route KLM is working together Thalys to offer a service to combine flight and train tickets. This service is called: Air-Rail. The challenges of Air-Rail lie within the transfer that differs from traditional Air-Air, using non-Air-Rail facilities, and a complex stakeholder network.

Research is done to understand how the Air-Rail transfer service can be improved to better suit the needs for Air-Rail transfer passengers. This done by experiencing the Air-Rail journey first-hand between Copenhagen and Brussels. As well as, analyzing the results of a research report about the Air-Rail passenger’s experiences.

Three main issues are to be concluded from research: 1. Pre-travel info, 2. Missing signage, 3. Baggage. From these three issues, it can be concluded that pre-travel info and missing signage require short-term solutions due to being involved with a singular or small number of stakeholders. However, baggage requires a long-term solution based on the complexity of the vast stakeholder network that is involved. Therefore, the main issue to solve is baggage. By creating a focus on a long-term plan, while in the meantime the low-hanging fruit (pre-travel info and signage) is picked to create a fully seamless and complete Air-Rail service.

Subsequently, concepts are generated for baggage by organizing an Air-Rail stakeholder workshop and interviewing representatives from an Air-Rail rail operator and an Air-Rail airline. The result is a list of generated concepts. From this a selection is made, to find the best and most fitting baggage concept. This is done by having representatives from an Air-Rail airline and airport, assess by filling in Harris profiles for the concepts. This is done with potential Air-Rail travelers as well, who vary in international train travel experience.

The outcome for the first horizon in 2025, is a temporary door-to-airport baggage delivery service. This service transports Air-Rail baggage by delivery van between Brussels and Amsterdam Airport Schiphol and vice versa. The outcome for the second horizon in 2032, is a permanent concept of designing a new train for Thalys that includes a fourgon. A fourgon is a train compartment where Air-Rail baggage can safely and separately be stored. Both solutions create a secure and convenient way of handling baggage during Air-Rail travel between Brussel Zuid and Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.

In the final roadmap design, it is elaborated how to implement these concepts. The roadmap specifies what the main product/service is and what is needed to support it. Additionally, the roadmap shows the tasks for Air-Rail stakeholders needs for a successful Air-Rail service.

The e-commerce market is growing rapidly and PostNL continues to strive for delivery to the doorstep. The last mile of delivery is considered the most impactful part of the logistical chain. On top of environmental impact, the liveability of the city centre is challenged by bulky delivery vans rushing through narrow streets and blocking the way to deliver parcels in time. Municipalities have ambitions to expel unsustainable and big vehicles from their city centres, making it a pressing matter for PostNL to change its approach.    PostNL committed to deliver 100% emission-free and nuisance-poor in 25 Dutch city centres by 2025. Emission-free delivery is achieved through deploying an electric fleet, but nuisance-poor delivery asks for a strategy to reduce congestion and make traffic situations safer.  PostNL aims to deploy light electric vehicles (Licht Elektrisch VrachtVervoer in Dutch) in the last-mile but is unsure what type of LEVV vehicle must drive on what road type to optimally reduce nuisance. The vehicle options are a bike-type LEVV and a truck-type LEVV as PostNL is unsure which one to choose and by testing both a full coverage of street-types is possible.    This research showed what information must be gathered for PostNL to decide what vehicle would cause the least nuisance on a type of street. The information helps them create routes for a vehicle-type which would cause minimal nuisance, while still being efficient. The information is used to create a model of choice theory, which helps PostNL decide what LEVV should drive on what street to reduce nuisance. A roadmap shows how this model is digitised and automated to be future proof. Lastly, a communication strategy is made to make sure the system is communicated clearly along the process chain.   Desk research and interviews showed that by focusing on safety and congestion as nuisance, liveability is increased no matter the area within the city. The potential in reducing this nuisance while still being efficient was confirmed in a physical test with both LEVV-types compared to a traditional bus. Two vehicles were selected as models for the design (Fulpra Roll bike and CargoLEV truck).    A survey showed a higher satisfaction rate in customers who received their parcel through sustainable delivery, together with a high vehicle awareness this shows a potential benefit for PostNL in happy customers and reputation.    A first PDCA-cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act) was used to build the reasoning for choosing one vehicle over the other. City centre streets were categorised into six archetypes, on which every vehicle was judged on its potential to reduce nuisance while parking and driving.    The theory states that if a vehicle can drive and park nuisance poorly, it is the most efficient one as it can move fast through traffic and find a parking space in front of the door of the delivery, reducing walking time.    The second PDCA-cycle showed how this theory can be made into a model of choice which can be used to create routes in all cities.    Weighing factors drop density, street direction, stratona weight and traffic intensity are needed for a weighted calculation to benefit important streets in the calculation and advice. The shape of this advice and how it must be communicated along the process chain concludes this cycle.  In the last design cycle a tactical roadmap is created that shows how the system evolves into an adaptive and pro-active route planning tool supported and improved by future road work data and driver feedback.    PostNL ended up with a substantiated theory on vehicle choice and a roll-out plan for using it. Another benefit of this research for PostNL, besides supporting LEVV implementation, is that it supports the argument within PostNL for the value of nuisance reduction as a main KPI besides efficiency.   

This report describes the graduation project for the MSc program Strategic Product Design. The client in this project is Etro Vastgoedzorg, a real estate maintenance company. Etro has a need for having and providing overview on client satisfaction, with the clients being several large housing corporations. To create this overview, the initial research was conducted on which factors were essential for the client satisfaction by performing interviews with several clients. These interviews and further research led to the conclusion that the relationship of both actors can be improved by a different way of working, but first there is a need for making steps in terms of building trust. This led to further research on building trust in inter-organizational relationships and concluded in a measurement model on relational succes factors. To master these factors, a handbook has been made for implementing co-creation in the way of collaborating of the relationship. Both the measurement model and the implementation of co-creation have become building blocks for creating long term relationships, based on mutual goals and mutual trust. The conclusion of this research is that by using the two objects of measuring and co-creating, both actors (Etro and Client) can build actively and cooperatively towards improving their relation.

The growth of a supplier is restricted when buyers have unmet expectations and thus frustrating experiences during the dyadic (between two parties) interactions. Hence the establishment of buyer-supplier relationships is limited. The organisational challenges of a supplier have a negative impact on the conveyed service quality. Customer orientation can create superior value for the customer and thus the service quality.

This graduation thesis approaches the challenge from the underexposed perspective of the supplier. The assignment aims to design a framework for supply organisations to enhance and implement customer orientation in buyer-supplier dyads. More specifically, it analyses and designs how the conversion phase of a Dutch service supplier, Pezy Group, can be more customer-oriented. In the context of the case study, customer orientation is the extent to which the supplier prioritises the customer’s expectations and applies its knowledge of the customer in the organisation to create a positive experience. The conversion phase is defined as the process of translating the buyer’s development request into a proposal for executing the project. The proposal concerns the service Pezy Group offers, in this case, integral product development projects.

From the analysis, it becomes apparent that different customers and their intended interaction result in various expectations and requires the supplier to organise their processes accordingly. A design goal is formed based on the defined and selected buyer-interaction archetype Structured Sophie. A framework is developed utilising participatory design methods, resulting in archetype specific customer journey of the conversion phase and an implementation roadmap for Pezy Group. Multiple validation sessions were organised to measure the expected impact of the future scenario on the customer orientation and thus service quality. Internal and external participants were selected (n=12) to evaluate the customer journey of the conversion phase using Likert scales.

The results showed that the proposed design changes of the customer journey contribute to Pezy Group’s enhancement of customer orientation in buyer-supplier dyads. Archetype Structured Sophie has a product development request focused on conceptualising, gathering insights, and intending a transactional relationship for the execution phase. The results of the validated design indicate that for Pezy Group to enhance and implement customer orientation, the following organisational changes must occur. This thesis concludes that a change of roles, in which the operational support is empowered to establish and manage the Sophie buyer-interaction archetype, will enhance the experienced customer orientation. This change is enabled by the support of the account responsible and the usage of standardised proposals during the process.

The delivered archetype specific framework concludes that the conceptual customer journey and implementation roadmap, once executed, increases the service quality of the buyer-supplier interactions, supports the conversion phase related activities, and may indirectly contribute to the degree of profitability of Pezy Group. Implementing the proposed changes by change management methodologies is recommended, as indicated in the roadmap. Since this graduation thesis is based on one case study, future research is required to investigate the generalisation of the recovered insights and the designed framework.

The airline industry has experienced enormous growth over the past decades, providing the opportunity to travel and explore new countries to more people than ever before. The enormous growth and serious drop in prices has created an ecosystem of very large airline groups and increasing consolidations of companies forced by very low profit margins. The airline environment can be conservative and innovation processes can be relatively slow, therefore startups can be an interesting and valuable sources of innovation for the airline industry. The survival rate of startups in general is very low and sources indicate that the airline industry is even more challenging for startups. Therefore, the objective of this research is to investigate the key success factors for startups in the airline industry and identify a strategy to exploit the key success factor successfully. The final objective of this research is to gain a better understanding of the success factors and find a strategy for startups to successfully exploit the key success factor. This should lead to an increased survival rates for startups in the airline industry and more efficient innovation. The results can than be used by multiple stakeholders such as airlines, incubators, startups and investors to better tailor their strategies and policies.

The concept of collaboration has been used as an effective strategy to achieve an intended result by numerous entities across various points of time in history. Beginning from the societal nature of human civilisations and medieval kingdoms to its modern uses in trade and politics, collaboration has shaped the world in its many forms by creating significant impacts in the society. The field of education and innovation are also impacted by the merits of collaboration in developing new knowledge and implementing a wide array of innovative solutions to the benefit of society. In recent years, collaborative activities between universities and industries are regarded as a source of knowledge production and technological advancements by fostering the economic and innovative competitiveness of the involved stakeholders. Industries can benefit from the outcomes generated by scientific research at the universities. These outcomes include the fundamental understanding of a particular phenomenon, in the form of theories or principles that are channelled through scientific publications. Universities can benefit from the opportunity to explore the industrial context to generate knowledge and obtain additional sources of funding for research activities. Thus, the importance of University-Industry (U-I) collaborations is considered relevant for the primary operations of the stakeholders involved. With factors that continually support the collaboration between universities and industries in the present and the foreseeable future, it becomes necessary for the context of collaboration to be explored further. Hence, a real-time collaboration between a university and several industry stakeholders is selected for further research using design thinking methodologies, and its underlying factors and future needs of the stakeholders of the collaboration are identified, and a future context is developed that defines the characteristics of the collaboration in the future. Through the process of understanding the current context of the collaboration, it is understood that there are unfulfilled needs among the stakeholders that lessen the impact on the outcomes of the collaboration activities. To address these unmet needs and also to adapt to the future context of the collaboration, the future context is extrapolated to design future scenarios that can be used as an opportunity to add value to the collaboration by devising a Hub collaboration and evolving its activities across various points in the future. Initially, the collaboration can be improved by creating a knowledge platform that acts as a modified repository for knowledge that is created by the collaborative activities and also as a social network that connects the stakeholders, thereby providing new opportunities for collaboration. Further, the concept of a collaborative laboratory that is functionally connected to other laboratories that offer new expertise and knowledge domain is proposed to develop and execute multi-stakeholder projects involving interdisciplinary research. Following this, an Innovation Transfer office is proposed for the collaboration to integrate the elements of the society into the collaboration thereby developing a system of infrastructures that enables the implementation and the integration of the innovation outcomes into a desirable, viable and feasible systems. These solution concepts form as steps towards a vision for the stakeholders of the collaboration to create gainful impacts on knowledge, business and society by spearheading innovation through collaboration. Thus, a collaboration of this kind is not to be seen merely as a union of stakeholders trying to develop innovation but has the potential to improve people’s lives by providing the best travel experiences without compromising on the operational factors of the collaboration.

A research gap was found when addressing the literature on small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the construction industry. Subcontractors and suppliers are primarily SMEs and form the largest percentage of firms in comparison to large enterprises (LEs) in the industry. Many parties are mainly concerned with maximising their profit, reason why, in many occasions, subcontractors and suppliers are selected by the main contractor on the basis of lowest price, rather than best value. Main contractors include harsh terms in contracts with subcontractors and suppliers, e.g., risk transfer. Risk transfer is a well-known risk treatment strategy in project risk management that has the purpose of allocating a risk to the party most capable of handling it. Unequitable
distribution of risk is a consequence of current practices affecting commercially and financially weaker parties, such as SMEs.