Beyond Cost

Europe's answer to every risk: find someone to blame, add a regulation, slow down. But what if that answer is the real risk? *See German version below.  In this episode of Beyond Cost, host Jakob Etzel talks with Prof. Dr.-Ing. Achim Kampker, Chair of Production Engineering of E-Mobility at RWTH Aachen, about Europe's battery production deficit, regulatory overload, and why the fastest always beat...

For 35 years, the world has measured sustainability by one number: carbon. But the same steel coil can produce carbon footprints that differ by more than 35%, all ISO-compliant, all "correct."   In this episode of Beyond Cost, host Jakob Etzel sits down with Prof. Dr. Jana Backes, Junior Professor for Safety, Security and Sustainability Evaluations in Foresight Research at RWTH Aachen University,...

Every year,  A2MAC1 tears down around 70  vehicles ,   analyzing  everything from battery cell chemistry to semiconductor sourcing.  For over   25 years, the company has built one of the most comprehensive automotive benchmarking databases in the world.   Sascha  Voglgsang , Director of Costing and Insights, works at the intersection of teardown analysis, standardized costing, and market intellige...

For every €1 invested in cost engineering, companies get €10 to €100 back. So why do most still miss  the savings ? Because they start too late.   Severin  Heimrath , Managing Director at AWS Innovation Partners , has spent 15 years inside manufacturing organizations and keeps seeing the same pattern:  treating cost engineering as a procurement tool instead of a design tool. By the time a product...

For 35 years, Dr. Rainer Balbach built automotive supply chains for Daimler AG Mercedes-Benz across Germany, India, Singapore, Egypt, and Russia. From deep-drawing aluminum to high-pressure die casting that replaced 150 sheet metal parts with one, he  witnessed  firsthand how innovation struggles against organizational resistance.   In this episode, Rainer tells host Sasan Hashemi what nobody want...

Germany's economy is losing momentum while many European peers continue to grow. What needs to change? In this episode, Sasan Hashemi speaks with Dr. Andreas Cornet , former McKinsey senior partner with 30+ years in the automotive industry. They discuss why Germany may need an economic pivot, how "Shift and Lift" can guide investment and productivity, and where energy policy and regulation hold th...

From the factory floor to the boardroom, Thomas Dieringer has seen what it takes to build software that manufacturers actually use .     In this episode of Beyond Cost, host Sasan Hashemi sits down with Thomas Dieringer, an entrepreneur and business angel with 20 years of experience founding B2B software companies in cost engineering. Mr. Dieringer shares what separates successful software compani...

Is Germany losing its most powerful industry right in front of our eyes? In this premiere episode of the Beyond Cost podcast, Tset CEO & Co-founder Sasan Hashemi sits down with Andreas Hartmann, former board member at ZF Friedrichshafen AG, to explore what's really at stake for the German automotive industry. As electric vehicles reshape the global market and Chinese automakers surge forward, we a...