Dr. Bernd Lauterbach studied and received a PhD in electrical engineering. After spending several years doing Assembler, C /C++, and Occam programming for image processing, GIS, and auto routing systems, he joined SAP in 1995 at the SAP headquarters in Walldorf, Germany as part of the SAP ERP LE-TRA development team. From 2000 to 2007 he was the lead architect for SAP Event Management and SAP Auto ID Infrastructure, and subsequently led development of SAP Transportation Management as a program/development manager. A second focus of his work is supporting transportation projects of strategic SAP customers from shipper and LSP industries. Since 2008, Bernd has worked as a senior business solution architect in the IBU Travel & Transportation area of SAP responsible for cargo and logistics.
Stefan Sauer has been with SAP since 2007. With the ramp-up of SAP Transportation Management 8.0 in 2010, he accompanied the success of the software product as an SAP TM consultant, being involved in implementation projects in retail, rail, and ocean freight industries and participating in customer engagements in other industries such as fashion, airfreight, and manufacturing. Stefan supported projects both from a business process perspective by creating blueprints and implementation concepts, and from a technical perspective as the link between project and custom development. Furthermore, he worked as a trainer for SAP TM for both functional and technical training courses.Stefan is now SAP's solution manager for the industry sector of ocean freight and port operations.
Dr. Jens Gottlieb received a PhD in computer science and has worked in supply chain software development at SAP SE in Walldorf, Germany, since 2000. He has written five books and more than 25 scientific publications in the areas of transportation management and heuristic optimization algorithms, and has edited six books. Jens was the development architect for the vehicle scheduling and routing optimizer and the carrier selection optimizer, which are used in SAP TM, SAP APO-TPVS, and SAP MRS. He led development projects both in SAP TM and SAP APO-TPVS and served as development manager for SAP TM. Holding the position of chief product expert, Jens works as product owner for SAP TM, where he is responsible for transportation planning and network.
Dr. Christopher Surie has worked for more than fifteen years as a principal consultant in supply chain optimization and transportation management at SAP Deutschland SE & Co KG in Walldorf, Germany. In this position, he has been involved in numerous international customer projects, implementing both SAP APO and SAP TM and focusing on their planning capabilities and optimization engines in production and transportation. He worked as a solution architect in several SAP TM projects and taught numerous SAP TM customer trainings. Before joining SAP, he worked in the department of production and supply chain management at Darmstadt University of Technology and completed his prize-winning PhD thesis in the area of production planning for process industries.
Ulrich Benz is an SAP supply chain management specialist with a focus on SAP Transportation Management. He has been managing and advising projects in this area covering different industries for the past 11 years. In his current role as solution advisor, he supports customers' transitions to SAP S/4HANA.
