Jürgen Weber

• Prof. Emeritus Dr. Dr. h. c. Jürgen Weber was born on November 4, 1953, in Holzminden, Germany. He studied business administration at the University of Göttingen, graduating in 1978. He earned his doctorate from the University of Dortmund in 1981 and completed his habilitation at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg in 1982. In the same year, he was appointed Chair of Business Administration, specializing in Accounting and Controlling, at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management.
• Weber has had a decisive influence on the performance measurement systems used in industrial logistics today and is regarded as one of the internationally renowned scholars in logistics management. He made a major contribution to making logistics processes measurable, manageable, and comparable from a business perspective, thereby creating essential foundations for modern KPI-based supply chain management. His contribution was not the invention of individual performance indicators, but rather the conceptual professionalization of logistics controlling systems and their establishment as a standard in academia and business practice. Weber is particularly known for structuring logistics and supply chain management from a controlling perspective. Through this work, he established comprehensive performance measurement systems that continue to shape industrial logistics today.
• A key element is the systematic integration of cost and efficiency indicators, such as logistics cost ratios, cost per shipment or order, and cost per ton-kilometer or pallet movement. These metrics create transparency regarding actual logistics costs and enable the economic management of supply chains. Weber also systematically incorporated service-level indicators such as on-time delivery, fulfillment rates, order-to-delivery times, shortage costs, and stock-out rates into logistics management. This made logistics performance measurable from the customer perspective.
• In addition, he established inventory and capital-related indicators—including inventory turnover, days of inventory, working capital commitment, and inventory accuracy—as central management metrics. This enabled the efficiency of logistics processes to be measured and compared systematically. Furthermore, Weber integrated process and productivity indicators such as picking performance, warehouse throughput, utilization of warehouse and transportation capacities, and order-processing error rates into operational management. As a result, logistics efficiency became systematically measurable and comparable.
• One of Weber’s most important contributions was the development of an integrated management approach for logistics. He consistently transferred the Balanced Scorecard concept to logistics, thereby driving the transition from isolated individual metrics to a holistic management system. Logistics performance management was systematically aligned with the dimensions of cost, time, quality, service, and capital commitment.
• His research fields include controlling, logistics, and New Public Management. He has published numerous standard works, including Logistik- und Supply Chain Controlling, which remains a key reference work and is widely used as foundational literature in university education. Overall, he has authored more than a dozen books and several hundred academic publications. Weber expanded his research early on into logistics controlling and developed a concept for logistics cost accounting that is now taught as a standard approach at universities. He also developed a framework for logistics performance accounting, including his contribution to VDI Guideline 4400, integrated logistics revenue effects into controlling systems, and systematically expanded the concept toward supply chain controlling. In this field, he established a leading position in both research and practice.
• Another major research focus was the analysis of logistics networks. Within the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) project “Vision Logistik”, Weber developed fundamental concepts for designing optimal supply chains together with engineering institutes and TU Darmstadt.
• Weber held the Chair of Controlling at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management from 1982 to 2021. He led several important research and industry transfer centers, including the Center for Controlling & Management (CCM), which cooperated with leading companies, including numerous DAX-listed corporations. He declined appointments at renowned universities such as Mainz, Vienna, and Darmstadt.
• In 2006, Weber received an honorary doctorate from European Business School (EBS). He has been a member of numerous academic organizations, served as editor of Controlling & Management Review (formerly Zeitschrift für Controlling & Management), and contributed to various research initiatives and expert groups.

Born on November 4, 1953, in Holzminden, Germany

1973–1978 Studied Business Administration at the University of Göttingen

1981 Doctorate at the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, University of Dortmund

1982 Habilitation at the Faculty of Business and Social Sciences, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg

1982–2021 Chair of Controlling, WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management

Since 2022 Professor Emeritus

2026 Inducted into the Logistics Hall of Fame