{"id":3792875,"url":"https://alion.io/job/mars-thesis-internship-driving-process-excellence-through-ai-2","title":"Thesis Internship Driving Process Excellence through AI","company":{"id":94439,"name":"Mars","domain":"mars.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/mars","size_band":"5000+","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workday","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":81,"open_postings":64,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.969,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":17,"computed_at":"2026-11-06T05:58:05Z"}},"role":"Early Careers","role_family":"Early Careers","seniority":"intern","employment_type":"internship","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Veghel, Netherlands"],"countries":["NL"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-11-04T00:00:00Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-04","last_verified_at":"2026-11-06T16:36:24Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":2,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":2},"description":"Job Description:\nLocation: Veghel (hybrid - partly at the office, partly from home)\nEducation level: Bachelor’s or master’s student\nInternship type: Thesis internship\nInternship allowance: €800 - €900 per 4 weeks\nStart date: Jan 2027\nLanguage requirement: Fluent in English (spoken and written); Dutch is a plus\nAbout Mars\nAt 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®.\nWhat 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.\nAbout the Internship\nThe 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.\nYou 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.\nWhat You’ll Do\nResearch and define a framework to enable supply chain process excellence at scale.\nInvestigate the architectural and functional requirements to build a ‘process lake’ where end-to-end process knowledge is centralized, shared, and compared.\nExplore how AI capabilities can be leveraged to audit meeting-centric and collaborative workflows that traditional process mining cannot capture.\nMap and evaluate standard processes against operational actuals (theory vs. actuals) across Demand Planning and Supply Chain operations.\nIdentify operational gaps, non-compliance patterns, and continuous improvement opportunities.\nEngage and collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders in Demand Planning and Process Management to validate audit methods and findings.\nFormulate actionable improvement proposals and an implementation roadmap based on AI audit insights.\nDeliver an academically rigorous thesis fulfilling both university graduation requirements and Mars business goals.\nBy the end of the internship, the intern will have investigated and established a Process Excellence AI Framework that enables Supply Chain teams to:\nCentralize and structure process knowledge within a prototype/conceptual ‘Process Lake’.\nUtilize AI methods to evaluate meeting-centric and human-driven workflows alongside system data.\nSystematically compare actual operational execution against theoretical process standards.\nAutomatically identify discrepancies and generate actionable improvement proposals across teams.\nWho we're looking for\nBachelor's or Master's student in Supply Chain Management, Business Process Management, Industrial Engineering, Business Analytics, Information Management, or a related field.\nKnowledge of or strong interest in Supply Chain Management, Demand Planning, and Business Process Mapping.\nPractical understanding or keen interest in AI tools, process mining concepts, and digital transformation.\nStrong project management and stakeholder management capabilities, with the ability to engage diverse teams.\nAnalytical mindset with the ability to translate complex process interactions into structured insights.\nStructured, proactive, and comfortable working both independently on a thesis and collaboratively with business stakeholders.\nStrong written and verbal communication skills in English.\nWhat You Can Expect from Mars\nA challenging and versatile internship in an international environment\nThe opportunity to grow both professionally and personally, supported by an experienced and approachable team\nA competitive internship allowance (€800-€900 per 4 weeks) and travel and home-working compensation\nGuidance and mentorship from experienced supply chain professionals\nAnd of course, unlimited access to our chocolate at the office\nWhat 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 .","description_format":"text","description_chars":5375,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[{"language":"English","level":"Advanced (C1)","optional":false}]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"Netherlands","iso":"NL","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Pet Food, Supplies & Care","Confectionery"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-11-05T07:24:45Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":63,"band":"ok","label":"Likely open","p_open":1,"p_active":0.632,"p_room":1,"age_days":2,"expected_fill_days":17,"reasons":["conf:4","stale_co","velocity","win:early","comp:junior,brand"],"computed_at":"2026-11-06T05:58:05Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/mars-thesis-internship-driving-process-excellence-through-ai-2","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/mars-thesis-internship-driving-process-excellence-through-ai-2.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-06T16:39:16Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":30928,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-07T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":94439},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=94439"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fmars-thesis-internship-driving-process-excellence-through-ai-2"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fmars-thesis-internship-driving-process-excellence-through-ai-2"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fmars-thesis-internship-driving-process-excellence-through-ai-2"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/mars-thesis-internship-driving-process-excellence-through-ai-2\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fmars-thesis-internship-driving-process-excellence-through-ai-2"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3792875}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"mars.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3792875},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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