This thesis examines the strategic positioning of Accenture’s newly established GenAI Studio in Eindhoven, with an emphasis on internal alignment, strategic positioning, and delivering value to clients. The research identifies the challenges encountered by small-scale, AI-focused initiatives within large multinational service companies and proposes a comprehensive roadmap to optimize the Studio’s operations. A multi-phase approach integrates a literature review—encompassing alignment, AI adoption, and innovation ecosystems—with qualitative data from 21 stakeholder interviews.

The resulting roadmap unfolds in three stages: (1) establishing a clear strategy, budget, and cohesive team structure; (2) transitioning from demos to paid Proofs of Concept (POCs) while strengthening cross-functional capabilities; and (3) scaling AI implementations through global partnerships and robust networks. Key findings highlight the importance of clarifying ownership, fostering collaboration across departments, and maintaining ongoing stakeholder engagement.

By underscoring how internal alignment and strategic positioning can accelerate AI adoption in industrial contexts, this thesis contributes to existing scholarship on AI innovation centers and organizational strategy. The proposed roadmap provides a structured means of bridging the gap between AI’s theoretical potential and concrete business outcomes, using the Eindhoven GenAI Studio as a model for similar endeavors. The study’s findings also emphasize the significance of continuous evaluation, agile adaptation, and stakeholder-driven improvements in rapidly evolving AI environments. Ultimately, the research demonstrates that cohesive internal processes, complemented by strategic ecosystem partnerships, are crucial for fully harnessing AI’s transformative impact in manufacturing and beyond.

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.

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.

In a world increasingly faced with complexity, systemic design is growing in popularity as a knowledge field to target such complex contexts. However, it is yet to be applied in organizations and projects. This thesis aims to bridge the existing knowledge and practice gap between transitioning, or ‘reframing’, from traditional problem-solving methods used for complicated problems and the use of systemic design for complex contexts that characterize challenges that modern-day society faces. The research is an innovative exploration into the transition to-, and practical application of systemic design within organizational project settings, particularly focusing on the design consultancy Halogen, which is already bridging this gap. Employing a multi-faceted research methodology that includes case studies, interviews, and document analysis, the study analyzes Halogen’s existing operational practices on the organization’s expertise and challenges in transitioning towards applying systemic design in projects, delivering final designs that combine both into practical guides in reframing.

The key findings reveal a significant gap between traditional approaches and systemic design in literature, mainly when dealing with complex problems. Interestingly, the challenges in reframing for the organization Halogen are not so much in the actual reframing and project execution itself but more in the processes supporting the projects’ pre-execution phase. It was observed that reframing practices occur naturally among skilled designers and business developers, but processes and misalignment within the organization limit Halogen from executing more systemic projects. Therefore, additional suggestions were made in the designs proposed in this thesis to align transitioning practices with needed foundations within an organization. Doing so bridges the earlier mentioned gap by introducing such practices organization-wide for people newly introduced to these practices and making it more applicable for other consultancies.

The thesis introduces a reframing framework, canvas, and accompanying information booklet inspired by improvement points and best practices, where empirical insights and research through design generated this knowledge. The insights showed that experienced designers automatically followed through the practices of spotting opportunities, aligning critical factors in projects, and accommodating them so a reframe could happen. However, this practice came from years of experience and is less evident to the novice systemic designer, indicating a need for help. This canvas and framework facilitate the transition from traditional to systemic design approaches by giving an easy-to-understand structure of the reframing practice and providing apt questions on how to do so— making designers able to target pressing complex problems. It outlines reframing tactics, critical factors, and foundations that organizations should consider for successful systemic design implementation. Besides offering value to Halogen as an organization, this thesis aimed for the designs delivered to achieve more systemic projects and impact for other organizations, focusing on the adaptability of the canvas and framework beyond Halogen. The research concludes that adopting a systemic and impact-focused viewpoint is not merely an option but a necessity for organizations aiming for sustainable impact and continuous improvement in the field of systemic design.

Electrical and electronic devices are a significant focus in resource sustainability due to increasing demand, resource usage, and waste challenges. Among these, consumer electronics are known for rapid innovation, short product life cycles, and being a part of an industry with many players, making them ideal for applying circularity principles to promote sustainability. However, adopting circular practices requires systemic change and collaboration from diverse stakeholders, necessitating a value chain perspective. Resources for collaborative efforts in the consumer electronics industry, adopting a value chain and circular economy perspective, are limited. Thus, there's a need for new tools and methods to aid organizations in establishing circular value chains through collaboration.

The main goal of this project is to help organizations in the Dutch consumer electronics industry set up an aligned value chain based on Circular Economy principles.A literature review first explored the current state of circular economy adoption, alignment dimensions, and barriers/drivers in the industry. The literature revealed that alignment dimensions are linked to specific barrier/driver categories, that at the same time are linked to the organizational boundaries. Then, semi-structured interviews with representatives from the context were conducted. The relevance of organizational roles within value chains, circular economy and environmental impact awareness, and context-specific drivers and barriers, emerged from them. Collaboration emerged as crucial, necessitating shared responsibility, the use of success stories to attract partners, and clear partner selection criteria.

These insights informed the development of the Circular Value Chain (CVC) method, designed to assist Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) in establishing circular value chains for consumer electronic products. CVC is a seven-step iterative process that considers design organizations and OEMs as initiators of the value chain. It begins with a self-evaluation, followed by drafting an initial Product-Service System proposition, to then envision an ideal circular value chain. It is then followed by assessing and selecting suitable partners, and aligning them for an effective collaboration. Various tools were designed and incorporated in the method in the form of circular value chain archetypes, an assessment card and spider diagram, and a table of selection guidelines.Overall, CVC adopts an organizational approach, involving different teams guided by an expert strategic designer.

This project holds practical and academic significance by providing insights into aligning partners within circular collaborations using a value chain perspective and offering a theoretical framework for future research. The designed method and tools bridge existing research implementing a value chain perspective, enhancing their industry applicability and the relevance from a circularity perspective. The included tools focus on assessing partners based on organizational roles and facilitates informed decision-making. Collaboration within value chains is vital for advancing the circular economy, and the CVC method supports this through a value chain perspective, role definition, and selection of the ‘right people’. While testing shows high potential, further refinement is needed for practicality and information inclusion. In sum, the design outcome offers an initial version of a method that should be further explored and iterated on.

Sarcoïdosis is a complex and rare disease, which can affect any part of the body. The disease has symptoms, side effects and treatment plans varying per patient. In the Netherlands, yearly up to 7000 to 8000 people are diagnosed with sarcoidosis, in an acute or chronic form (Sarcoïdose - UMC Utrecht, n.d.). In the Netherlands, there are three sarcoïdosis specialist centres, and Erasmus MC is one of them. The Interstitial Lung Disease department of the Erasmus MC is trying to provide the right care for sarcoïdosis patients. However, together with the Convergence Program, a collaboration between the Delft University of Technology and the Erasmus MC, they analyse how the care at the hospital can be optimised. However, for patient care at home, there is still room for improvement, as expressed by medical experts. In this project, the methods and results lead to a patient journey map that indirectly improves the sarcoïdosis patient journey. The method of Patient Community Journey Mapping from Jung (2023) sets the base for the analysis. This is a data-driven approach to utilising online patient stories for machine learning. Together with a data scientist from Erasmus University, posts of wijhebbensarcoidose.nl are analysed and converged into a patient journey map. Topic listing is applied to the database of 7500 posts, followed by quantification of popular topics, and a sentiment analysis to show the urgency of a topic. The conducted patient journey map consists of 1) a medical journey path and 2) the topics derived from the computational analysis. A co-creation session with pulmonologists and specialist nurses was done to validate the resulting patient journey map. Followed by an interview with a patient to validate this map. These sessions were organised to get an even more realistic patient journey map. Sarcoïdosis is a complex disease, and often multiple topics are discussed in one post. Therefore, an analysis is done to see the co-occurrence between topics. From this resulted that the key value is formed by everything related to finding a balance in life with sarcoidosis. The patient journey map emphasised multiple needs that are mentioned negatively, according to the sentiment analysis. This led to three important patient needs to take into account for this project. Together with the key value, the main four patient needs are the following:

1. Help patients with finding a balance in life after their diagnosis.
2. Give patients a clear overview of their medication intake.
3. Monitor the patients’ quality of life sarcoidosis aspects.
4. Provide patients with information about sarcoidosis-related topics.

These formed the base of the designed system in the form of an application:
Sarcoïdosis voor jou. This application has four main pages where the focus on each page is a different need. The self-management tool can be created with the internal company Digitaal Verbonden. Together with the ILD department, the application can be created with some additional research steps. This project can argue why certain functions should be implemented in the general Digitaal Verbonden application for Erasmus MC patients.

This thesis set out to investigate how small to midsize industrial design practices address strategic challenges. For this a literature review was conducted, as well as complementary desk research and an interview study with design practitioners. Later on three small case studies helped set the direction of the project. The findings and insights were translated with the ViP method into a playbook containing interventions industrial design practices can use to connect their work closer to strategic design.

The playbook contains a framework that aims at proposing a new way of working together with clients that enables reciprocal strategy formulation and strategy execution by reenvisioning the consultancy model and utilizing collaboration within a creative ecosystem.
Furthermore, the playbook contains concepts, approaches, and tools that support Industrial Design practices to activate the strategic potential of the projects they work on.

Reciprocal Strategy Formulation and Strategy Execution

A central part of this concept is the reciprocal nature of strategy formulation and strategy execution. Combining the two and letting them interact with each other creates better outcomes for the process. Since the knowledge from the execution part informs the formulation in the first place, it makes a successful implementation more likely. Similarly, understanding (or better yet, being part of) the formulation stage guides the implementation better because the reasoning, goals, and objectives are already part of the process.

Reenvisioned Consultancy Model

The interaction and collaboration with the client get strengthened through closer exchange and teamwork. By being part of both strategy formulation as well as strategy execution, the design practice is no longer only involved in short parts of a project but can provide consistency throughout the project. At the same time the design practice has now more “skin in the game” than before, therefore they also feel more ownership over the whole process.

Creative Ecosystem Collaboration

Essential for this concept is harnessing the creative power that can be found in collaboration.
Especially combining a diverse range of participants enables the creation of innovative design outcomes. This concept also enables the design practice to remain relatively small and agile. It is through the network and the collaboration of different actors within the network that a potential absence of specialized skills and capabilities is balanced out.

Design Agency Nacar has experienced remarkable success since it was founded in 2006, transforming from a small industrial design studio to a prominent agency with around 120 employees in Spain. Due to their recent growth spurt, it was found that Nacar is currently in a transition phase from being a small-sized agency to a medium-sized organisation. Due to this transition phase, Nacar faces new organisational challenges. This project aims to identify these challenges and develop a sustainable growth strategy that will allow the organisation to maintain its success in the long term.

The central focus of this graduation project is therefore to answer the research question: "How can design agency Nacar create an effective transition strategy?" The chosen approach involves engaging various stakeholders throughout the different phases of the project. This includes direct participation from employees across various business units, with validation from top management afterwards. To guide the research, two sub-questions are formulated to guide the process, aiming to find the obstacles and enablers of the transition that Nacar faces, as well as the organisational challenges Nacar encounters in facilitating the transition.

Nine insights are identified from the research, being obstacles, enablers, or challenges. To refine these insights, they are further categorised into three levels: operational, tactical, and strategic insights. After validating the research insights with top management, the following conclusion could be drawn: “There is a need to create a bridge between the perspective of the employees and the perspective of top management.” In order to develop this bridge, employee participation during the creation of a solution is crucial. Therefore employees are recruited for a workshop to share their input and ideas for the solution, after which a roadmap for 2025 is created, addressing the insights found during the research. By collecting both perspectives in this roadmap, a framework for the transition is created.

However, this roadmap does not provide directions or guidance for Nacar during the transition. Therefore three strategies are created in the shape of routes that can be taken within the roadmap. These strategies each prioritise a different strategic goal for 2025 and provide the path to achieve it. The strategies are validated to ensure they resonate with the perspective of the employees. After this validation, the final solution was created.

The transition strategy exists as a combination of the strategy with a business focus and the strategy with a people focus. This combination results in a strategy that aims to introduce a new innovation lab and optimise daily operations to improve the employee experience. Further recommendations are made to support the outcome in terms of advice on implementation and execution.
Overall, this report provides a framework for designing an effective transition strategy that can help Nacar navigate the complexities of change in the future.

By 2029, a baggage handling capacity shortage at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol is expected due to the foreseen growth in the aviation industry. Research has shown that the current method of baggage handling already puts pressure on the baggage handling system and its stakeholders, resulting in critical peaks during the day, especially in the holiday season. Schiphol wants to optimize the current baggage handling process with innovative solutions since expanding baggage capacity with implementing new assets is not sustainable due to governmental restrictions.
Research stated that 20% of the check-in baggage must be inserted into the baggage handling system before peak hours to realize the desired spread of baggage handling throughout the day (peak shaving). Schiphol can realize this if the check-in baggage arrives at the airport earlier than in the current situation. Therefore, passengers need to be nudged to change their travel behavior with hold baggage. Commercial baggage pick-up services exist in the market, and such a type of baggage service (BaaS) was the starting point of this research.
The research question stated: How can we build a BaaS ecosystem in order to nudge passengers to use early entry baggage check-in services to make optimal use of the baggage handling capacity at AAS?
Conclusions from this thesis indicate that Schiphol should collaborate with existing commercial baggage pick-up parties to use their infrastructure as part of the ecosystem. Secondly, airlines are the key factor in offering the baggage pick-up service to their passengers since passengers prefer to book the service as part of the travel booking with the airline. The challenge of the project was to design a unique baggage service concept that will be attractive for airlines to offer to their passengers, that will be valuable for passengers to use, and that will realize peak shaving. The challenge included identifying the role of Schiphol in setting up this ecosystem.
A baggage home pick-up service is designed for passengers traveling with hold baggage, called the EASY TRAVEL service. The service is created to attract holiday travelers by responding to the need for convenient traveling without hold baggage to and at Schiphol. The EASY TRAVEL service consists of three features that provide extra value to passengers and help nudge them to use the service; a trustworthy and transparent baggage service, a reward & benefit system and personalized travel advice.
This thesis recommended that Schiphol should take the lead in building the ecosystem by collaborating with the necessary third parties to provide the baggage service. By introducing the EASY TRAVEL service, Schiphol can influence the timing of processing check-in baggage to shave the expected capacity peak. Airlines will be the interface towards their passengers and will offer the EASY TRAVEL service as an additional service on their booking platform. Schiphol will develop an Application Programmed Interface (API) that will serve as an interface tool to support this ecosystem where the backend of the three service features is arranged. This API can be easily integrated by the existing apps of airlines and can be adapted to their own brand, making it attractive for airlines to implement it.
An implementation roadmap is created for Schiphol, which emphasizes starting with a pilot of the EASY TRAVEL service and ecosystem with a few airlines who are interested in participating and one commercial third party. The evaluation and learnings from the pilot will help create a working and proven service that will attract more airlines and third parties to participate and realize the desired peak shaving on a larger scale by 2029.

Vanderlande Industries B.V. is the global market leader for future-proof logistics process automation at airports and in the parcel market and the leading supplier of process automation solutions for warehouses. Vanderlande gained its number one market position from constant innovation and making great quality products, meeting the question of the customer and coming from a technology-driven perspective. However, to stimulate their innovation, bridge existing knowledge silos, and be ready for VUCA Worlds, Vanderlande wants to have the right creative response. Through a series of collaborative workshops, a group of Vanderlande employees from different departments is guided through the process of Design Roadmapping called The Long Now. The scope of this project is Traveling in Europe process will focus on centralizing the passenger, instead of the airport as a driver for innovation and value. Furthermore, there is a plan to use the workshops also for other domains, e.g. parcels and warehousing. This led to the initial research question: “How to create a digital process of Design Roadmapping in which the passenger is central for Vanderlande and that could be transmitted to different domains?”

Through a theoretical background, the design of The Long Now can be separated into three different levels: Firstly, The Long Now Process design, on this level all design choices regarding the process and outline of the workshops are defined, including the involvement of senior management. Secondly, the strategic workshop design, on this level is the design of the strategic workshops necessary to build the design roadmap. And lastly, the knowledge design. The workshops are for non-designers, so the needed design research was done beforehand and served as input for the different strategic workshops. On all three levels, guidelines were created as a foundation to design for these layers.
Secondly, because of the existing knowledge silos within Vanderlande and the externally created design knowledge that needs to be adopted by the participants, knowledge barriers within the group can occur. Knowledge boundaries happen when ideas are so novel that a new language, interpretation, or interest is needed. Therefore, the right design frames and tools for knowledge crossing are necessary. All these different insights are transformed in a design goal:
“Design the process, strategic workshops, and content for “The Long Now” that is transmittable to different domains following the created guidelines and that helps in crossing any existing knowledge boundaries by designing the tools/ frames/ methods for this.”

Through continuous iteration loops, the workshops and the necessary design frames were first tested and redesigned, to make sure that the flow of the workshop and the knowledge crossing elements were optimal. The final design of the Long Now is a set of Design Roadmapping workshops that is ready to be transmitted to the next domain of airports. Based on this first version of the workshop, a set of recommendations is written for the next Long Now, which will take place in other domains.

In addition to this research, the strategic workshops also produced outcomes regarding the scope of Traveling in Europe, which resulted in a future vision statement for Vanderlande: In 2050, Vanderlande orchestrates seamless, sustainable connections for every journey.

Our current travel behaviour is having a detrimental impact on the environment. Especially air travel is a huge contributor to climate change, with its large amounts of polluting carbon emissions. Due to increasing concerns regarding the environmental impact of air travel, international train travel may become an increasingly popular mode of transport for European journeys in the near future. However, current European train journeys are not an integrated and supported experience from start to finish. Finding suitable tickets can be complicated due to the variety of booking platforms and irregularity of ticket prices. Moreover, train journeys themselves can be stressful because of delays in transfers and the inflexibility of departure times. As a result, many people are withheld from actually taking the train and prefer to travel by plane or car. In order to stimulate more people to choose the train as their mode of travel, this project created a design vision towards seamless European train journeys. In this future vision travellers are able to travel anywhere they want, whenever they want to. It allows you to just hop on any international train, without having to book a ticket in advance. With your personal travel account and location being updated behind the scenes, it is possible to travel across borders and pay as you go. Standard journey fares are introduced, so travellers will not face any unpleasant surprises afterwards. This project puts forward a strategic roadmap presenting the main steps, actions and developments that are needed to realise the future vision. Seamless European train journeys should take shape by incremental scale increases over time, starting with current pilots that make it possible to seamlessly travel across borders in the Netherlands. Governments, railway companies and mobility providers should collaborate to break down borders and create an integrated cross-border travel experience. The European Commission should take up a guiding role to foster this implementation and collaboration, by setting regulations on data transparency and rolling out the essential network. After implementing the future vision, it is expected that more European travellers prefer to travel by train instead of plane or car. In the longer term, the train becomes the default option for European travel and the future vision and roadmap developed in this project can positively contribute to the transition towards more sustainable transportation.

One of the most pressing concerns of each organisation is innovation. It can be reached through product differentiation, but innovation is also obtained through having the right employees. Corporate cultures that support to take the risk and think creatively will be led to new products, services and strategies. However, these innovations are only beneficial if they manifest superior value in the customer-driven marketplace. To do so, companies should act upon customer-centricity: the act of placing the customer at the centre of everything one does, by listening to what they have to tell, studying their needs, and afterwards using these gained insights in one’s process. By putting consumers first and empathising with them, one gains an understanding of the target group, but even though this is very important, it is often not sufficient for successful NPD (New Product Development). Instead, consumers need to be present and cooperating in NPD stages to provide valuable feedback. This involvement can be managed with the well-known principle of Design Thinking, primarily through the first step of empathising. Empathy is described as an identification process of “becoming” the experience of the client, and it is based on the two components of affective and cognitive empathy. By balancing these two and with that optimally empathising with customers (understanding the customer; recognising the customer), innovation and profitability are reached. Hence, a new type of innovating was introduced: Empathy-driven Innovation. One in which companies focus on the deepest underlying needs of their users and the quality of those, by putting the customer first and performing all company-energies while thinking on behalf of the consumer, to stimulate innovation.

However, based on a Case Study at HEMA, it was found that there is currently limited contact with (and involvement of) customers happening in (design) processes within the studied company. The goal of the Case Study was to find out how much innovation was currently happening through both qualitative and quantitative research. The study discovered five lacking factors of innovation to be improved. Firstly, employees should not only acknowledge Customer-centricity but also act upon it. Secondly, employees should use (more) customer insights in the fuzzy front end to build a foundation for their products to make. Also, the perceived level of innovation among employees should be enhanced. Fourthly, all employees should take ownership of innovation: it is not a one man’s job. Finally, HEMA should become a frontrunner, whereas they are right now following other businesses to get ahead. A strategy was created to integrate customers in HEMA working processes, to become therefore more innovative. The HEMA framework, based on empathising with the customer, is short for Hear, Experience, Melt and Analyse. These four steps in the HEMA model are in the first place easy to remember for employees because of the acronym and second of all, they support the employee to engage in customer interaction. The designed HEMA Empathy Toolbox takes care of the company’s lacking factor of innovation. The toolbox contains, amongst others, a HEMA Empathy Card Deck with 42 questions that enable the employee to take on the perspective of the customer. While supporting employees to take on this perspective or to even act as if they are the customer themselves, it stimulates active customer participation in company processes. A Customer Involvement Panel is the end-goal of the strategical roadmap to this issue and is recommended to support employees even more to have direct contact with their user. With this panel, employees can set up meetings themselves to, together with Empathy-driven Innovators, facilitate co-creation sessions with real customers. Ultimately, this HEMA Empathy Framework will improve the rate of customer engagement, and with that stimulate and reach innovation.

Companies understand the importance of employees’ engagement in its innovation capability. The contact between employees and customers is a great way to spark new opportunities for ideas relevant for customers (Kelly & Storey, 2000), they have in-depth and highly context-dependent operational knowledge and have creative potential. They make an interesting often unused source for innovation potential. In the case a single employee or a small team of employees that are not assigned to the task are indeed the sources of the generation and implementation of such new ideas, products and processes, it can be called employee-driven innovation (EDI). Many organisations, therefore, try to engage employees and facilitate employee-driven innovation to increase its innovation capability. With the current global trend of servitization, which is the process to extend the customer relationship by bringing value also after a product purchase, companies will invest in the development of services. When companies would like to increase their innovation capability through employee-driven innovation, employees will therefore likely be expected to create ideas for services in which they are often not educated or trained. One of the challenges for a company in employee-driven innovation is to create and sustain a company culture and environment that generates the right conditions for this. Especially if this should be supportive of new service development, as services have intangible qualities that make it harder to test the actual value for the customer even with educated staff. Hence, the first aim of this thesis is to understand the challenges and effective ways of organising employee-driven innovation for new service development. Through a literature review and participatory design sessions with employees from a service solution provider, I created an approach that displays what the managerial, organisational and employee roles can do to facilitate employee-driven innovation in three parallel steps. In addition, TOPdesk, an ESM service solution provider, was also interested in increasing its innovation capability through employee-driven innovation. They captured their interest in a company objective that aims to create profit from a new market, coming from employee initiatives. I found that TOPdesk employees need guidance and support in their employee initiatives, to enable them to create and develop new service ideas. Therefore, the second part of this thesis is about creating a design toolkit that fulfils these needs and an implementation design roadmap in order to facilitate employee-driven innovation at TOPdesk. 
The employee initiative toolkit is a structured approach that guides and enables employees with new service ideas to effectively explore its value with the goal to convince the management team it should become a new service for TOPdesk. Through covering idea selection criteria, aspects of a business plan and pitch canvas, employees are able to do this. The purpose of this toolkit is to increase the effectiveness of employee initiatives for new services and therefore contribute to implementing employee-driven innovation for new service development and reaching their company objective to increase its innovation capability.

Amsterdam Schiphol Airport is the main international airport in the Netherlands, being the third busiest airport in Europe in terms of passenger volumes (Insideflyer, 2020). All these passengers spent most of their time behind the security check in the terminal, waiting for their aircraft to depart. In this area, passengers are encouraged to spend their money (Kaplan, 2018). Schiphol offers many different retail, and food and beverages stores where the passengers’ needs can be met. The sale of goods in the terminal is Schiphol’s largest source of income (Schiphol, 2020). The passenger volumes at Schiphol have been growing in the last few years and are expected to keep growing in the coming years (CBS, 2018 and Schiphol, 2020). Growth in the passenger volumes causes both the passenger and goods flows to increase. In addition, there are many other streams in the terminal. In order to ensure that passengers are not hindered by these flows and all logistics processes take place in a safe manner, the logistics process will need to be set up differently. Schiphol is dealing with a complex environment, where there is no greenfield and solutions will have to be found within the current infrastructure. Therefore, the goal of my graduation project was to develop a new logistics concept for Amsterdam Schiphol Airport in 2030 with a focus on the passenger experience and safety norms. Various design methods and tools have been used to research the current logistics process, the values of stakeholders and trends that may play a role in the future of the logistics process. Based on these results, a future vision for the logistics process has been designed for 2030. The future vision contains that Schiphol will have to facilitate and control the logistics process in 2030, using a connected chain and autonomous processes. In order to meet the passenger experience and safety norms, it is mainly important that Schiphol gets control over the logistics flows to Schiphol, control in the logistics streets and control over the logistics flows to the terminal. In order to achieve the future vision, idea mapping sessions have been organised, from which the new logistics concept has been created. Both a strategic and tactical roadmap have been designed, in which service propositions work towards the new logistics concept in three horizons. These propositions take into account the various suppliers involved in the logistics concept and offer a new logistics concept for each of them. The new logistics process centralises the logistics processes to a Logistics Centre in the Schiphol area, from where Schiphol takes full control with the Schiphol Logistics Service and delivers all goods to the terminal. By centralising the logistics processes and making one logistics party responsible for the logistics process, the number of logistics flows in the logistics streets and the terminal will be reduced, thereby benefiting the passenger experience and safety norms.

To stay relevant to its consumers, Philips Avent should meet the needs and values when innovating. These consumers are the next generation parents, generation Z born between 1995 and 2010. Research has been conducted into the needs and values of Generation Z and Parents within the field of pregnancy. The research draws on internal desk research, trend research, interviews, and a survey. The challenge for this project was that the majority of Generation Z are not parents themselves yet, which makes it difficult to predict their future desires. This led to the research question:How to create a new value proposition for Philips Avent that corresponds to the future needs, values, and behaviour of the next generation parents, Generation Z, while the majority of this generation is not yet in this phase of their life? The internal analysis, consisting of strategy, product portfolio and target audience analyses, revealed the potential value of the app in the way Philips Avent approaches their target group. Furthermore, Philips Avent wants to become more present for parents in the pregnancy stage. At the moment, Philips Avent only focuses its portfolio on specific childcare routines leaving the partner or other relatives out. Philips’ strategy shows that Philips is moving towards a connected healthcare system, which means that connected products and services ensure that data can be converted into better healthcare for their consumers. Trend and desk research, consisting of global, parenthood en generation Z trends revealed that omnichannel as a retail strategy, personalised experiences, consumers’ health and wellbeing, doing things from home online and inclusivity are becoming more important to people in life. Furthermore, in parenthood, the parent’s own life, equal parenting, their health, and parenting apps are important aspects during this stage of life. Lastly, Generation Z shows that they are health-conscious, they find transparency and responsibility important in companies, they rely on multiple sources when it comes to their health and buying products, experiences are more important than products, they are influenced by social media and are targeted the best through digital storytelling. After determining pregnancy as a scope, interviews and a survey with Generation Z and expecting mothers have been conducted and were validated through a questionnaire amongst mothers of all generations. The insights showed that Generation Z can feel insecure about the future when it comes to climate change and the corona crisis, their purchasing behaviour is mainly influenced by social media and Philips as a company did not stand out to them. Pregnant women can feel insecure when it comes to being prepared for parenthood, combining normal life with pregnancy and the feeling of not knowing what is normal during their pregnancy. A three horizon strategy is proposed, including advertisements showing real pregnancy situations, a personalised omnichannel experience and new products and services that fit the whole pregnancy experience building up to a future vision. This strategy is based on the findings from the research and a creative session with people from Philips and the target group.

Dyneema® fiber is a high-performance fiber that is sold by DSM Dyneema BV to product producers all around the world. Dyneema® fiber is marketed as the world strongest synthetic fiber, its high strength for its weight provides value over competing materials. Dyneema® fiber products include ropes and netting for commercial marine and armor plates for life protection. DSM is moving towards a sustainable and circular corporate strategy. This graduation assignment is to investigate possibilities for DSM Dyneema BV to make the transition towards the circular economy with Dyneema® fiber.
Theory of the circular economy was used to create a framework for the circular possibilities. The Dyneema® fiber itself was analyzed. Where is was discovered that circularity is complex due to the significant value loss during conventional recycling processes. Reuse and remanufacturing of End-of-Use Dyneema® was chosen as the most interesting circular direction for Dyneema® fiber for the extension of lifetime of the fiber.
It was chosen to analyze the Dyneema® Commercial marine market as the source of End-of-Use material. This market was chosen because of market size and type of products. Stakeholders and the business models of DSM Dyneema BV and a Dyneema® customer were analyzed. From these analyses it was learned that the possible circular value chains depend on the specific market or application where the End-of-Use Dyneema® will be used in. From an analysis on the competitors of Dyneema® fiber it was learned that other high-performance fibers are being recycled, although not with high quality. The competitors still face the same challenges as DSM Dyneema BV.
The End-of-Use material from the commercial marine market was analyzed by experiments. Two End-of-Use ropes were taken apart to see what value was left in the material and with prototyping possible ways of value recovery were explored.
A list of criteria for finding an application for a design case was set up. The list of criteria was to find, evaluate and choose an application to analyze further in the form of a design case. Seaweed farming was chosen as the application to investigate further.
Seaweed farming is an upcoming technology that could provide society with healthy food and energy and play a role in the conservation of the environment. Seaweed is grown on lines that lie underwater in the sea. Possibilities of using End-of-Use Dyneema® were analyzed in the design case and it was found that, the design of the farm should be adapted to the material to make optimal use of the End-of-Use material. A re-design was made that showed that End-of-Use Dyneema® is an interesting opportunity. The use of End-of-Use Dyneema® in seaweed farming comes with both opportunities and barriers that need further investigation. Because of the environmental and circular benefit of the seaweed farming market. Further investigation in the use of End-of-Use Dyneema® in seaweed farming is recommended.
From the design case it was learned that there are feasible opportunities for reusing End-of-Use Dyneema® to extend the lifetime of the fiber. Further research will be required to look for possible ways to produce the ropes with the intention to reuse them after the first product life cycle.

The goal of this graduation project was to develop an innovation strategy for LeasePlan in relation to mobility as a service (MaaS). Before being able to determine a feasible, viable and desirable innovation strategy a comprehensive MaaS future mobility scenario was sketched out. This scenario was based on the insights gathered from the market, technological and MaaS research. Thereafter, the business context of LeasePlan was analysed in order for us to determine a LeasePlan specific positioning within this future mobility scenario.Based on the MaaS research insights we can conclude that MaaS could challenge the value proposition of long-term vehicle leasing. Therefore, this thesis instead delivers a solution that strengthens and takes away several of the pain points along the current vehicle centred journey of LeasePlan customers, while using the principles and characteristics of MaaS. More specifically, in a future where cities become free of personally driver driven vehicles this thesis provides a solution to the first and last mile mobility gap along the journey of urban LeasePlan customers. It does so by creating mobility hubs at the outskirts of the city, which combine physical parking with a digital MaaS mobility hub application. By doing so, customers are able to make seamless transitions between their regular car journeys and flexible & convenient first and last mile inner city mobility solutions. Ultimately, this solution would enable LeasePlan to deliver upon the set vision for this project which is “Providing careless mobility to our customers.”LeasePlan is able to obtain several benefits by building an extensive network of strategically located mobility hubs spread across the key cities within the Netherlands: 1) LeasePlan is able to strengthen its current value proposition by filling in the first and last mile mobility gap with seamless multimodal vehicle centred journeys; 2) LeasePlan is able to generate additional revenue by offering new vehicle centred mobility services, such as the inter hub micro transit solutions. Additionally, LeasePlan could profit from re-selling first and last mile solutions from their partners; 3) At these mobility hubs LeasePlan services can be offered such as maintenance and commercial activities. This would reduce the costs of such activities and increase the brand awareness of LeasePlan.To support and enable the development and realization of the concept both a strategic and tactical roadmap have been created. These roadmaps explain the necessary steps leading towards the desired future mobility hub concept in great detail. The roadmap is divided into three horizons, spanning from short term developments to long term developments. The short-term solution aims to increase the flexibility and convenience of the current CaaS solution, this in order to fulfil the changing customer needs. While the long-term solution aims to fill in the future first and last mile mobility gap and strengthen the current vehicle centred value proposition of LeasePlan.

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.

This thesis report is about redesigning the passenger boarding interaction for ensuring efficient boarding and a better experience. First, preliminary research including literature review and field study was conducted to gain the basic knowledge of a passenger's boarding experience (What is to be found in theory and real-life?). Following from this, research questions are: What is a passenger's interaction during boarding? How does a passenger fell during boarding interactions? Why does he/she feel this way? How do the interactions happen? Due to the project is in cooperation with Safran Cabin, which is under developing a luggage reservation system called the "BINSIGHT", consisting out of an overhead bin with sensing technology and an user application for reserving luggage space. Therefore, the fourth research question is added: Can the "BINSIGHT" system take away passenger uncertainties to improve the boarding experience? To find answers, the "BINSIGHT" system and the aircraft cabin context were examined. By applying the contextmapping approach, an empirical research took place in a simulated boarding context. 12 participants were recruited and provided rich insights during the user test. Afterward, data is collected and analyzed. From the cultural analysis and user interview, it is concluded that the uncertainties to the cabin environment cause an inefficient boarding experience. For example, a queue is created due to every passenger wants to be the first entering in the aircraft cabin (the value of achievement). Furthermore, passengers also care their own safety and privacy during boarding (the value of security). Therefore, inter-personal distance has become a critical issue. By applying Proxemics theory (Hall, 1966), aircraft boarding can be seen as a territorial behavior. Keeping a proper distance between passengers/luggage serves as a starting point for the design process. Other findings from the user test are listed as follows: (1) Hand luggage as part of passengers' body, (2) Passenger-unfriendly Interactions, (3) Multitasking, and (4) The trade-off between passenger experience and boarding efficiency. By integrating all the findings, 6 "micro delays" which cause inefficient boarding and negative experience were defined: (1) Checking boarding pass on the aisle, (2) Finding seat signage, (3) Searching luggage space, (4) Repacking luggage on the aisle, (5) Closing overhead bin while others are still boarding, and (6) Inappropriate luggage stowing behaviors. Based on outcomes from the user tests, the Socio-cultural dimensions (van Boeijen, 2015) was applied to indicate current value orientations. 3 dimensions were targeted and listed as follows: (1) Identification: Identification stands for the balance between individual freedom and connectivity with a group. (2) Aim: Aim values the purpose between caring each other and achieving success. (3) Space: Space copes personal privacy in a public space. After the definition and analysis of current problems, 4 concepts were created through creative sessions based on the design goal, “Take away boarding uncertainties by showing air passengers a worried-free path from entering the aircraft to their seat in the economy class cabin.” Then, all concepts were evaluated through rapid prototyping and role-playing sessions, and they were integrated into the final concept "ready to fly" by applying persuasive game design (Visch, Vegt, Anderiesen, & van der Kooij, 2013 ). Through gamification, a game world is created to provide a feeling of enjoyment and engagement, also to reduce the real-world consequences. Furthermore, by using the game elements such as avatars, points, rewards, storylines, and etc., a user’s behavior and attitude in the real world can be formed, altered and reinforced, which can be applied for achieving the design goal and promoting better boarding behavior. Overall, the prototype "ready to fly" is about a retrospective mobile game experience of helping a caterpillar find a space for making a cocoon in a virtual aircraft cabin. This experience gives air passengers a rehearsal of their boarding experience while waiting at the departure gate. A personalized avatar for each passenger and airport related scenes can allow passengers to adapt to the unknown environment, which can provide guidance to reach their seats. By beating the level through cooperation, can put down the barriers between strangers. Finally, real-world rewards can motivate the passengers and alter the behavior (adjusting luggage position) for creating more space in the cabin, and moving the interactive screen from the bottom of the overhead bin to the top provides more space for window passengers to locate their seats. Overall, the passengers get better experience by cooperating together and winning the rewards, and the boarding efficiency can be improving by a better boarding flow and more luggage capacity. For the redesign user test, an interactive prototype of "ready to fly" was built and tested by 6 participants. The test shows that the "ready to fly" concept provides better boarding experience and efficiency. Participants can easily find their seats and luggage space without spending extra time on the aisle. It is also worth mentioning the reward system, by correcting passengers' stowing behaviors, more capacity is created. However, combining numerous elements in a short interaction might overwhelm the users which creates more confusion while boarding. Therefore, it is suggested that to take the passengers step by step. Making small changes for a bigger impact. Lastly, it can be concluded that correcting passengers boarding behaviors by seducing with rewards can increase passenger experience. In the meantime, the boarding efficiency can be improved due to good boarding behaviors lead to less conflicts and delays in the cabin. Therefore, seducing with rewards for better passenger behavior is a promising solution for both passenger experience and boarding efficiency. Finally, a model of reward system for better boarding experience is made and a modified concept is proposed for future research. I believe this research opens a door for a better and efficient aircraft boarding through gamification. Upon further development, more research is required in order to improve the acceptability for the public and also to test with larger amount of passengers. It is also suggested that designing a gameful or playful interaction instead of a mobile game experience to enhance the acceptability and the flexibility of usage.

Due to the growing amount of air traveller in the coming decades, there is an increasing interest to improve the experience of the passengers. Especially travelling with hold-luggage is a big pain point and stress factor for passengers’. A new way of looking at this problem is providing a baggage pick-up and delivery service by independent baggage courier companies or by a collaboration of a airline and local courier company. Generaly, this trend is unknown to passengers.

The project client for this project is SITA. SITA is a well known IT and hardware solution developer, who serves aviation customers worldwide. Instead of letting airport and airlines develop their own baggage service, SITA could be a party who offers an universal service. However, this trend is unknown territory for SITA, and they have limited understanding of the experiences of passengers. For SITA it is interesting to be inspired of how a baggage pick-up service would look like and what their role could be.

The pick-up moment is a critical moment in the service journey. In a short time-span, the service needs to leave a good impression, exchange the baggage and check it in. Then, the courier needs to be on its way again, and the passengers should be left behind with a good feeling. Especially this exchange feels unequal for the passengers. This resulted in the following research question: How to facilitate a trustworthy moment for families to ‘hand-over’ their hold-luggage to a first-mile baggage service (home pick-up to arrival airport delivery), so they can travel carefree to their destination.

In the designed service concept the passenger and courier identify each other with the use of a chip that is connected to a platform; where the data is stored and distributed to the partners of the service. By checking the baggage allowance and securing an Electronic Bag Tag to the luggage a check-in experience is enhanced. And prepares the passenger for a paperless and self-service future travel. Moreover, the passengers get access to the Bag Journey Planning to maintain tactile visibility over their belongings. During the moment the helping-hand attitude of the courier is crucial for the customer experience.

The interaction is supported by, a SITA, API cloud platform that makes the communication; sharing and usage of the data-sets, possible at this moment. Additionally, SITA offers a standard interface, through which partners can access the platform, that is runs on the own application of the courier partner. The biggest challenge for SITA is to manage all the API calls the couriers’ devices make, especially when the amount API calls per minute grows, the use of a baggage home pick-up service grows. Nevertheless, the proposed role lays within the core activities of SITA.

The validation with the target group revealed a rising positive development from the moment the courier arrives at the door and leaves with the bags. The participants were enthusiastic and had faith in the service quality. They called it: customer-friendly, easy, personal, and therefore they would go on holiday with a more secured feeling.

The project showed an exciting potential for SITA to be a disrupter in the aviation world and offer a universal baggage service. However, there are a few to-do’s for continuing the project: Develop a tactical roadmap, construct a business case for the EBT, research the needs of the courier, and search a case owner within SITA.