Production and Management
In small and medium-sized companies, there is a great demand for managers who possess not only technological knowledge but equally management skills. This master's degree program combines the two areas.
Building on their technically oriented bachelor's degree, students can deepen their technological specialized knowledge, but in parallel acquire business expertise and organizational management skills. In doing so, the degree program is oriented to the operational value chain, including necessary key qualifications. The innovative concept is aimed at graduates of technical bachelor's degree programs as well as industrial engineering bachelor's degree graduates.
Qualification
Graduates of the master's program are qualified for management tasks in small and medium-sized enterprises. Medium-term career prospects are offered in the following areas:
- Technical management and overall management in medium-sized companies
- Management functions in larger companies and public institutions (e.g. plant management, production management, corporate planning, product planning, organizational development, project coordination)
- Management of research and development units
- Management consulting
- Business start-up
Entry requirements
Bachelor's degree with 210 credits in Innovative Production Systems, Industrial Engineering or Digitization Engineering. Admission is also possible if, in addition to the 180 credits earned in the (six-semester) bachelor's degree program, a further 30 credits have been earned in examinations or as part of an internship semester. Students can either bring these 30 credits with them from their bachelor's degree program or earn them as part of the master's degree program. The examination board decides on these additional credits after the students have enrolled.
The application for students within the EU takes place directly at the university, for students outside the EU via www.uni-assist.de.
Admission to the degree program is possible for both the summer and winter semesters, please note the relevant application deadlines in the course of the application.
Further details on the study requirements, application/enrollment and the supplementary 30 credits can be found at this link.
Foci
In accordance with the requirements of the career objective, the degree program deepens knowledge in two main compulsory elective module focus areas:
Production and Materials: In the focus area production and materials, modern manufacturing technologies and materials are presented and studied in depth. An individual focus and a desired industry reference is possible by selecting the modules offered.
Management: For taking on strategic questions in the company, management tasks and personnel responsibility, knowledge from the areas of business administration, law, innovation management, personnel, data analysis and processing and strategic management is necessary. To individualize the course of study, students can choose from various modules.
Curriculum
The degree program includes two compulsory modules (Applied Mathematics and English) as well as the obligatory research internship, the latter can be completed either in the summer or winter semester.
Various mandatory elective modules in two subject blocks ("Management" and "Production and Materials") are distributed over the first two semesters. Four modules must be selected from each of the two subject blocks, at least one of which must be in English (cf. study plan). In each thematic block, a further module must be selected, so that a total of at least 9 compulsory elective modules are taken. The Master's thesis with colloquium is completed in the third semester. If necessary, a practical semester (0) or additional Bachelor's or Master's modules to earn the missing 30 credits (for admission with a Bachelor's degree of 180 credits) may be taken beforehand, thus extending the Master's program to four semesters. The individual modules do not build on each other, but presuppose basic knowledge acquired in the preceding bachelor's degree program with a focus on production or industrial engineering.
In addition to modules taught by TH OWL professors, selected modules are carried out jointly in cooperation with particularly qualified scientists and employees from industry in management functions. Industry-related content is taught in cooperation with the research institutes of the participating companies.
An essential component of the master's program (leading to the degree of Master of Science) is the in-depth study of scientific working methods and procedures. The laboratories of the department are competent contacts for the various questions of the industry. On behalf of industry or on their own initiative, they carry out research and development projects in which the Master's students are actively involved. This is also where the mandatory research internship (workload approx. 210 hours) is completed, which serves to deepen scientific work after the bachelor's thesis by working on selected issues from a larger research project under the guidance of the project leader and in cooperation with the corresponding working group.
The master thesis concludes the degree program, it should preferably be carried out in the field of research and development, e.g. in the direct research projects of TH OWL, in projects together with industry, but also in the field of corporate development and re-engineering.