A leading mechanical engineering company in the field of intralogistics wants to significantly expand the area of “networked machines and software” and establish a research and development center within the EU for this purpose. Finding the right location for this is difficult: there should be enough engineers and developers available on the labor market, good universities in the vicinity should provide a further pipeline, but at the same time the costs for land, rents and salaries should remain within acceptable limits and as few competitors as possible should vie for local talent. In addition, a good age structure (no excessive ageing), positive migration saldo and excellent transport connections are important. The company entrusts the strategy consultancy Advyce & Company with the task of determining the best possible locations from these points of view and making a recommendation.
As a partner of HASE & IGEL, Advyce & Company relies on the Neutrum Location Profiler to check and prioritize all relevant criteria for locations that are considered in principle in consultation with clients and experts. The system automatically collects all the necessary data from the various sources, merges it with the help of AI and evaluates it according to the priorities formulated by the company. What is important here is the overall view of economic and cost data, infrastructure data, population and labor market data and a view of the competition – precisely the “360-degree view” for which the system was developed.
In the end, three locations in Southern Europe are shortlisted. Based on the analyses with the NeutrumLocation Profiler, Advyce & Company can recommend a clear favorite to the client company – on the basis of sound data, according to the specific client criteria and 100% comprehensible (explainable). The entire process, which is actually very time-consuming in terms of data collection, integration and analysis, could be completed in a very short time (a few days) and with significantly fewer resources than before.
German 