From student to supply chain strategist: Six months at MarineSolar

Lars and Joep

Over the past six months, Lars Bollwerk has worked as a Supply Chain Intern, helping MarineSolar develop a sourcing strategy for the PV modules at the heart of NanoDeck™. From building a supplier longlist from scratch to meeting potential manufacturers at Intersolar in Munich, he was given the opportunity to work on a real commercial challenge rather than simply observe from the sidelines. We spoke to Lars about what he has learned.

Q: What attracted you to an internship with MarineSolar?

A: I had only worked for large corporations before, so I wanted to see what a startup actually looks like from the inside. The sector appealed to me as well. Solar on ships was completely new to me, and NanoDeck™ is the kind of product you do not come across very often. A small company building something that specific seemed like a much better place to learn than another corporate department.

Q: How has the experience compared to your expectations?

A: It exceeded them. I hoped I would be given real responsibility, but I did not expect how much I would be involved from the start. In my first weeks I flew to Manchester to meet the team, and later I went to Intersolar in Munich to speak with potential suppliers directly. Being trusted to represent the company at a trade fair as a student is not something I took for granted.

Q: What has been your favourite project or task to work on?

A: My thesis, and specifically the supplier work behind it. I built a longlist of module manufacturers from scratch, screened them against our own technical requirements, and then contacted the most promising ones myself. Going from a spreadsheet of company names to actual conversations with manufacturers and research institutes was the part I enjoyed most. Intersolar was the highlight of that. Speaking to suppliers face to face taught me more about the industry than weeks of desk research.

Q: Can you tell us a bit more about your thesis?

A: My thesis looks at how MarineSolar should design its sourcing strategy for PV modules, which are the single most critical component in NanoDeck™. The difficulty is that roughly 85% of the world’s solar modules are produced in China, while MarineSolar needs modules that are salt-mist certified, walk-on capable and built to a non-standard design. The company therefore has to balance cost, resilience and performance at a point where it has not entered the market yet and has very little buying power.

To do that, I built a criteria catalogue based on internal interviews with the team, screened a longlist of suppliers against it, and positioned the shortlist in a cost, resilience and performance triangle. The main conclusion is that the more useful question is not which supplier to pick, but in which order to do things. Most of what limits MarineSolar today sits on the buyer side rather than in the supplier market, so the recommendation is a phased roadmap that builds up the company’s own sourcing capability step by step.

Q: Were there any unexpected benefits or challenges during your time at MarineSolar?

A: The main challenge was that suppliers do not always give you the information you need. A lot of what I was asking about, such as factory ownership, cell origin or certification status, is either not published at all or only available as a self-declaration. I had to learn to work with incomplete information and be honest about what I could actually verify.

The unexpected benefit was how quickly I was trusted with real responsibility. Nobody handed me a finished task list, which felt uncomfortable at first and turned out to be the most useful part of the whole internship.

Q: What skills have you developed most since joining the team?

A: Working independently is the main one. In a small team the tasks are rarely fully defined, so you have to work out yourself what the actual problem is and what a sensible next step looks like. I got much better at that. I also learned to think more strategically instead of only executing, and to speak with senior people outside the company, which was intimidating in the first interviews and became normal after a few.

Q: What do you enjoy most about being part of a company at this stage of growth?

A: You can see the effect of your own work. In a large organisation a student project usually disappears into a folder somewhere. Here, the supplier list I built and the strategy I proposed are things the team can actually use for the sourcing decisions coming up. Knowing that my thesis feeds into a decision the company genuinely has to make was very motivating.

Q: Has this experience influenced your career goals or future plans?

A: Yes. I want to stay in supply chain and procurement, ideally in a technical or sustainability-driven industry, and preferably in a smaller company where responsibility comes early. Before this internship I was not sure whether I wanted the structure of a large corporate role. Now I know I prefer an environment where you are trusted to take decisions and are also accountable for them.

Q: Would you recommend this type of internship to other students?

A: Definitely. You learn an enormous amount in a short time, and you get a realistic picture of what working life is actually like, including the parts that do not go to plan. If you are willing to take initiative, this is a very good place to do an internship.

Q: Is there anything you’d like to add?

A: Mainly a thank you to the team. I was included in things I did not expect to be part of and the appreciation I received made a real difference to how much I wanted to put in. That is not something you can take for granted as a student, and I am grateful for it.