Jörn Serrer

My name is Jörn Serrer. I am a PhD researcher at the Institute of Production Management at Leibniz Universität Hannover. Currently I am developing a computer-aided planning tool for the efficient construction of an airport infrastructure for refuelling aircraft with liquid hydrogen.

There are two systems for refuelling aircraft: Refuelling by a bowser or a pipeline and hydrant network under the apron. Using mathematical optimisation methods and simulations in a digital twin, I look at the dimensions up to which aircraft can be supplied with bowsers and at what point the more expensive pipeline system should be installed.

I am an optimiser, I love efficient processes. Translating a business problem like that into a mathematical optimisation model and orchestrating a fleet of refuelling vehicles in a simulation is fun.

Building a fuelling infrastructure at an airport is a decision for generations. As an airport operator, I would want to have a tool at hand, that shows me digitally in various scenarios what impact my decisions will have, before the real excavators roll in.

Most of my colleagues in the cluster are engineers. Not everything that would be technologically possible in aviation automatically has to be a success in reality, see Concorde. With me as an economist, but also with my colleagues from mathematics, law and the social sciences, the cluster has a broader base. I am a very communicative person and value the exchange of ideas, also outside the official SE²A events.