Institute of Production Engineering and Machine Tools (IFW), University of Hannover

The Institute of Production Engineering and Machine Tools (IFW) of the University of Hannover is one of the best-known research institutions in the Federal Republic of Germany within production engineering. IFW represents in a special way the variety of this field, as its activities are centred on machining technologies, the respective machine tools, simulation, and production management. Within these fields, IFW aims at rationalising manufacturing processes through a balanced approach that comprises both fundamental and application-orientated research. The close co-operation of the institute with industry accounts for a good insight into real problems and demands. An important portion of the yearly turnover is thus achieved by projects, which are directly financed by industrial resources, in particular by SMEs. Apart from these industrial projects and national research programmes, IFW is and has been successfully involved in several European projects.

IFW features approximately 65 research engineers, overall almost 100 people of regular staff and more than 100 students, mostly graduates. Situated in Hannover a city of about 600,000 inhabitants, capital of the German state of Lower Saxony and host of the two largest fairs worldwide (CeBIT and Hannover Fair), IFW not only benefits from its scientific and industrial reputation, but also from an excellent infrastructure. Furthermore, it is only one year ago that IFW joined the newly erected unique Hannover centre of production engineering, together with other research institutions and a number of industrial partners.
Research and development are not IFW’s only activities, education of engineering and business students is regarded to be vital as well. Teaching covers all subjects that are related to the pursued research activities. Within the I*PROMS Network, IFW is leader of the APM cluster. More information about IFW and its current research can be found at www.ifw.uni-hannover.de