Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPTThe Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft was founded to promote applied research and has been successful in the field of R&D for more than sixty years. In 1980, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft assigned Professors Wilfried König, Manfred Weck, Tilo Pfeifer and Walter Eversheim with the job of establishing the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT in Aachen. Professor Fritz Klocke took on the directorship in 1995 from his predecessor Professor König. In the years 2002-2004 there was a further important generational change: Professors Günther Schuh, Christian Brecher and Robert Schmitt joined with great commitment to the succession of her now retired predecessors Walter Eversheim, Manfred Weck and Tilo Pfeifer.
The Fraunhofer IPT has been working together with the Fraunhofer Center for Manufacturing Innovation CMI in Boston, USA since 1994 to promote technology transfer between the European and American markets. The Fraunhofer CMI has been headed by Professor Andre Sharon since 1998. Our base in the USA encourages international collaboration and intensifies our contacts to US client companies.
The Fraunhofer Institute for Mechatronic Systems Design IEM, founded as a Project Group of the Fraunhofer IPT and the Heinz Nixdorf Institute in 2011, works on the development of mechatronic systems for control technology, software technology and product planning.
Further activities of the institute abroad currently take the form of so-called Project Centers in Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden.