“Technology can make our lives so much better”

With his Master's degree in Digital Business and Strategy, Lukas Göbel had not planned to join an industrial company. However – as is often the case – the task appealed to him. Tilling a “green field”, building something new and visionary: That suits the 31-year-old, who founded his first company after completing his training and has been working as Product Innovation Manager at thyssenkrupp Materials Services since 2021. The Automotive Circularity Platform is also one of these “first of its kind” projects. An interview about digital networking, single-origin scrap – and private excursions into history and politics.

Lukas, what exactly does an Innovation Product Manager do at thyssenkrupp Materials Services?

“Essentially, I develop digital business models and products. At thyssenkrupp Materials Services, we not only want to reliably supply our customers with materials in the future, but also harness the information and data streams that are created parallel to each material flow. This is because there is often added value for customers in this data. Exactly what kind of added value is a question that we deal with in Innovation Product Management. From the evaluation of the initial idea to the development of specific solutions. And we then systematically develop these further until the product gradually meets all the desired customer and market requirements.“

One of these ideas is the Automotive Circularity Platform, or ACP for short. What is it all about?

“With the ACP, we want to bring materials from end-of-life vehicles back into the automotive value chain. The idea for this arose in a discussion with our customer Novelis and we now plan to tackle the topic. What you need to know: As a manufacturer of flat rolled aluminum, Novelis faces similar challenges to many other industrial companies. First, there are the high energy prices and possible future CO2 compensation costs. In addition, there are legal requirements, e.g. as part of the EU's circular economy strategy. And finally, the company has set itself ambitious sustainability targets. Novelis therefore has a great interest in further reducing the CO2 footprint of its products. And the best way to achieve this is through the increased use of secondary materials. Materials that already have a product life behind them and can be recovered through recycling.“

Sounds logical. No new raw materials are used and that saves CO2.

“Exactly. The only problem is that these materials have not yet been returned to the manufacturer's production process. The aluminum that Novelis produces for the automotive industry is reused in some form after the vehicle is scrapped, but the key word is “in some form”. There is no closed loop that ensures, for example, that an aluminum sheet for a car body is turned back into an aluminum sheet for a car body after its first life cycle. And we want to change this with the Automotive Circularity Platform. Our major goal is to increase the purity and thus the quality of the scrap we manage so that we can essentially reuse it in production. And this requires more transparency in the value chain and a completely new ecosystem.“

Your platform solution creates transparency by bringing suppliers and buyers together?

“That’s right. The new ecosystems shall take care of the logistics and end-to-end traceability of materials along the value chain. We want to create new transparency in the market and make the material available to industrial customers.“

How will the project become a marketable product?

“We are working with a small set of pilot customers and are collecting materials. By the end of October 2024, we want to have generated and collected the first 250 tons of flat rolled aluminum from old car scrap. These shall then be fed into further recycling processes in order to turn them into a complete use case as quickly as possible. In other words, we want to prove in reality that it works to produce high-quality sheet metal for the automotive industry again from end-of-life vehicle scrap with a very high recycling quota. At the same time, we plan to continue to expand our digital platform product. This shall always develop hand in hand, so to speak. So, we are currently gathering experience to scale the envisaged solution in the next step. We expect the Automotive Circularity Platform to take a big step into the market in the next two to three years.“

What made you decide to apply for a job at thyssenkrupp?

“If you look at my CV, an industrial company probably wouldn't have been the next logical step. And it was also a bit of a coincidence. I met my current line manager, Sebastian Smerat, when he had just taken over the innovation division and wanted to set up something completely new there. A green field, so to speak. And that gave rise to the idea that I could support him. I found that very exciting, especially in such a large company. That's why I'm still here three years later.“

So you are someone who likes to try out new things. Do you also have a soft spot for digital green meadows in your private life?

“Yes, I do. Even if I sometimes think I should take more analog time out. But I do have a lot of fun trying out digital tools. Last week, I installed my first balcony power station and of course connected it to my smart home straight away. I like smart networking. Technology can make our lives so much better if we use it correctly. Digitalization is not a purpose in itself, but a huge enabler to do things differently, better and more efficiently. So yes, I am passionate about digital.“

And how do you switch off?

“Soccer. And I'm very interested in politics and economics. For legal topics, for history, for neuroscience. So, it can be quite exotic thematically. The main thing is that it doesn’t get boring and has nothing to do with the issues that keep me busy during the week.“

Lukas, thank you very much for the interview!