Thesis Internship Driving Process Excellence through AI

Location: Veghel (hybrid – partly at the office, partly from home)
Education level: Bachelor’s or master’s student
Internship type: Thesis internship
Internship allowance: €800 – €900 per 4 weeks
Start date: Jan 2027
Language requirement: Fluent in English (spoken and written); Dutch is a plus

About Mars
At Mars, we’ve been building brands that people and pets love for over a century. As a family-owned business, we operate in more than 180 countries worldwide with iconic brands such as M&M’S®, SNICKERS®, TWIX®, PEDIGREE®, WHISKAS®, SHEBA®, and ROYAL CANIN®.
What makes Mars different? Our culture. We believe that growth starts with our people. That’s why you’ll get the freedom to develop yourself, share your ideas, and take real responsibility from day one.

About the Internship
The Thesis Intern Driving Process Excellence through AI will explore how process standards can be maintained, audited, and scaled across complex supply chain operations. Having process standards is the foundation for high supply chain performance, enabling the setup of planning hubs, sharing best practices at scale, and driving process digitalization and automation. However, keeping to this standard is challenging and time-consuming. While process mining helps, it is typically system-focused and cannot cover the entire process—particularly meeting-focused interactions such as Demand Planning reviews.

You will investigate how AI capabilities can facilitate more effective and efficient process and meeting audits. The core challenge is to investigate the framework needed to achieve process excellence at scale by conceptualizing and designing a ‘process lake’ (analogous to a data lake) where process knowledge is stored, shared, and compared to evaluate actuals versus theory and generate concrete improvement proposals.

What You’ll Do

• Research and define a framework to enable supply chain process excellence at scale.
• Investigate the architectural and functional requirements to build a ‘process lake’ where end-to-end process knowledge is centralized, shared, and compared.
• Explore how AI capabilities can be leveraged to audit meeting-centric and collaborative workflows that traditional process mining cannot capture.
• Map and evaluate standard processes against operational actuals (theory vs. actuals) across Demand Planning and Supply Chain operations.
• Identify operational gaps, non-compliance patterns, and continuous improvement opportunities.
• Engage and collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders in Demand Planning and Process Management to validate audit methods and findings.
• Formulate actionable improvement proposals and an implementation roadmap based on AI audit insights.
• Deliver an academically rigorous thesis fulfilling both university graduation requirements and Mars business goals.

By the end of the internship, the intern will have investigated and established a Process Excellence AI Framework that enables Supply Chain teams to:

• Centralize and structure process knowledge within a prototype/conceptual ‘Process Lake’.
• Utilize AI methods to evaluate meeting-centric and human-driven workflows alongside system data.
• Systematically compare actual operational execution against theoretical process standards.
• Automatically identify discrepancies and generate actionable improvement proposals across teams.

Who we're looking for

• Bachelor's or Master's student in Supply Chain Management, Business Process Management, Industrial Engineering, Business Analytics, Information Management, or a related field.
• Knowledge of or strong interest in Supply Chain Management, Demand Planning, and Business Process Mapping.
• Practical understanding or keen interest in AI tools, process mining concepts, and digital transformation.
• Strong project management and stakeholder management capabilities, with the ability to engage diverse teams.
• Analytical mindset with the ability to translate complex process interactions into structured insights.
• Structured, proactive, and comfortable working both independently on a thesis and collaboratively with business stakeholders.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills in English.

What You Can Expect from Mars

• A challenging and versatile internship in an international environment
• The opportunity to grow both professionally and personally, supported by an experienced and approachable team
• A competitive internship allowance (€800–€900 per 4 weeks) and travel and home-working compensation
• Guidance and mentorship from experienced supply chain professionals
• And of course, unlimited access to our chocolate at the office

What to expect after submitting your application You can apply for this internship through our website by uploading your CV. Once we’ve reviewed your CV and see a potential match, you’ll receive an invitation for an online interview via HireVue. You can record this digital interview at a time that suits you best. This way, you’ll get a first impression of us, and we’ll get to know you better. After reviewing your interview, we’ll let you know whether we see a good match. If we do, we’ll invite you for an interview with the team you may be joining as an intern. If it’s a good fit on both sides, we’d be happy to welcome you to our team as an intern! Interested? Apply via our website. For questions about this internship, please contact us at EarlyTalent.NL@effem.com.