Michael Schäfer, Master of Science, 2019

Master’s studies

Having completed the Bachelor’s programme, I enrolled at OTH Regensburg to study for the Master’s degree in mathematics. From my point of view, the Master’s programme has perfectly complemented the studies in industrial mathematics. The purely mathematical knowledge from the Bachelor’s degree was extensively deepened in the Master’s by the (compulsory) courses in algebra, functional analysis, statistical methods and nonlinear optimization:

Linear algebra/(functional) analysis (Bachelor’s) - algebra/functional analysis (Master’s)

Probability theory and statistics (Bachelor’s) - statistical methods (Master’s)

Linear optimization/numerical mathematics (Bachelor’s) - nonlinear optimization/numerical optimization (Master’s)

In my opinion, the contents of the Industrial Mathematics programme thus form a solid basis for a Master’s programme.
The more practice-oriented courses in the Master’s programme, such as image analysis, cryptography, numerical optimization or simulation, provided a change from the ordinary. It was good that for each theoretical subject there was also a practical subject, e.g. for algebra there was cryptography. This shows that even algebra is not a purely theoretical matter. An industrial mathematicians is particularly pleased about this.

Master’s thesis

For my Master’s thesis, I went to Brose Fahrzeugteile GmbH in Bamberg. The topic was “Simulation and evaluation of movements of production residues within mechatronic assemblies”. In principle, this involved examining an electronic circuit board that is contaminated with a certain number of dirt particles (production residues). Such a circuit board in the vehicle is naturally exposed to vibrations during driving, which also causes the dirt particles on the circuit board to move. It had to be clarified:

Can a kind of “failure probability” for the electronics be specified as a function of the particle movements on the circuit board? The shape, material and size of the particles played an important role. Metallic particles can cause short circuits.

The result was a software tool:
You could specify the number of particles, their geometry and distribution over the circuit board. This information was automatically transferred to a programme which created and calculated a simulation model. The simulation results where automatically evaluated and output in the form of a specially defined key figures and graphs. Image analysis played an important role here.
So the thesis was very interdisciplinary: software development, simulation, probability theory, statistics, and image analysis.
Later, my supervisor at Brose was of the opinion that it was very good to have chosen an industrial mathematician for this kind of work.

In between, we had to completely overturn an important chapter of the Master’s thesis due to excessive computing times and turn to other solution approaches. In the time I had left, that was a challenge. In the end, the thesis was awarded the grade “very good” and a small prize.

Since then, I see the greatest strength of an industrial mathematician in quickly acquiring knowledge from various areas (if not already acquired), applying it in a targeted manner and delivering structured results. I have learnt that it is sometimes imperative to quickly acquire new knowledge.
This shows that there is a need and an interest in industrial mathematicians and that the corresponding programme provides a good basis for acquiring the relevant skills.
However, it must be said: The topic of the Master’s thesis was made for an industrial mathematician. Therefore, a mathematics student should sound out in good time in discussions with the supervisors whether the planned topic also offers enough material to be able to bring in one’s own strengths. This is very important if the thesis is to be written in cooperation with a company. A good opportunity to sound out the contents is offered, for example, by job interviews in the respective companies.

Starting the career

For more than one year, I am working at Preh GmbH, Bad Neustadt a. d. Saale. There I am active in mechanical development and dedicate myself to simulations as well as various computing tasks. The simulations are mainly structureal mechanical analyses using FEM. Preh GmbH produces control elements for cars and agricultural vehicles: Climate controls, steering wheel switches, various rotary controls/knobs, in principle all the interfaces between driver/operator and the vehicle. The built-in mechanics are usually very delicate and complicated.

Up to now I have been an absolute exotic as an industrial mathematician. Surrounded by engineers, there are at least some physicists among my colleagues. Being an “exotic” means two things:

My colleagues have not yet decided where there is the difference to an engineer. I just studied “something to do with maths” and I am obviously good at maths. In this aspect, I and other industrial mathematicians still have to do educational work. On the other hand, I need time to recognize when and where I can contribute best to the day-to-day business of the many engineers. So it is about getting to know each other.

I think that this period of getting to know each other does not only apply to my personal job situation, but also to the job profile of an industrial mathematician in general and it will need at least several years. Only then industrial mathematicians will have opened up certain fields of activity for themselves. These are likely to be areas that require strong analytical skills, logical thinking and a structured way of working. Pure arithmetic tasks are nowadays taken away from us by computers. Excel generates the polynomial approximation of a curve from measurement data with just a few clicks. For this task, no engineer will ask me for help. However, the decision about WHICH calculation method is applied WHEN is (still) with the person. From time to time, it’s actually concrete computational tasks that I can grasp and solve faster than one of my colleagues. Once, someone wanted to know how to spell “Chebyshev”. Of course, I could help with that :) Every day, I learn from the engineers and vice versa, which is really interesting and a lot of fun. Perhaps the current phase of getting to know each other is the most exciting of all.

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