Already after his studies of Mechanical Engineering at the Technical University of Munich, Prof. Gunther Reinhart decided to join the iwb and started his successful career with a doctorate at the institute in 1987. The doctorate was followed by five years as a leading employee at BMW AG. Afterwards, 27 years ago, i.e. already in 1993, Prof. Reinhart became holder of the chair for Industrial Management and Assembly Technology at iwb and thus returned to his alma mater himself. Since then, not a day has gone by without Prof. Reinhart's constant commitment and scientific expertise at the iwb and his excellent reputation in the training of engineers. The high esteem in which he is held by students, doctoral candidates, and colleagues speaks for itself.
In its scientific work, the Chair of Industrial Management and Assembly Technology always focuses on topics of work design, factory and plant planning, PPS and robotics. In doing so, Reinhart has always taken up new trends, such as the humanization of the working world, the methods of lean production or the digitalization of production, and applied them in a wide range of research projects for the benefit of society. The funding volume, which he acquired for this purpose from the DFG and from foundations via state and federal funding to the EU, amounted to over 80 million € in the 27 years.
In the past 10 years, he has also built up a very successful Fraunhofer Institute IGCV in Augsburg from the existing Production Technology Application Center with over 150 employees.
More recently, Reinhart has been working on the topics of cyber-physical production systems, mobile robots and human-robot cooperation as well as humans in the factory. Particularly noteworthy is the establishment of a 20-member group of scientists to research processes and systems for battery production.
After 27 years as iwb institute director, since 2002 at the side of Prof. Michael F. Zäh (Chair of Machine Tools and Manufacturing Technology), Gunther Reinhart is now emeritus as of 01.10.2020. The entire iwb wishes Prof. Reinhart all the best and a wonderful retirement.