Curriculum Vitae   

• born 1934 in Bochum
• study of mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Hannover (1957-1959)
• president of the student union of the Technical University of Hannover (1957-1958)
• designer, design manager, vice-president in the machine tool industry (1959-1961, 1965-1970)
• research engineer at the Institute of Machine Tools and Metal Forming of the Technical University of Hannover (1961-1964)
• promotion to Dr.-Ing. (1965)
• call on the chair of Production Engineering and Machine Tools at the Technical University of Hannover (since 1970)
• member of "Hochschulgruppe Fertigungstechnik", Scientific Society of Production Engineering (since 1971)
• Dean of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of TU Hannover (1972-1974)
• active member of the International Institution for Production Engineering Research CIRP (since 1975)
• call on chairs of TU Munich (1982), TU Darmstadt (1982), TU Wien (1986), TU Hamburg-Harburg (1989)
• member of the Scientific Council of the Federal Republic of Germany (1980-1984)
• member of the Curatorium of the Volkswagen Foundation (1982-1987)
• Commissioner of Research and Technology of the State of Lower Saxony (1984-1986)
• member of the Senate of the German Research Foundation (1984-1989)
• Vice-president of the German Research Foundation (1989-1995)
• member of the Curatorium of the "Physikalisch-Technische-Bundesanstalt", physical technical federal institute (1997-2001)
• member of the Curatorium of Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung- und pruefung", institute for material research and testing (1995-2001)
• President of CIRP, International Institution of Production Research (1997-1998)
• member of the Board of Directors of the Laser Center Hannover LZH e.V. (1996-2004)
• Managing Director of the Institute of Integrated Production IPH (1989-2005)
• Member of the National Academy of Science and Technology, acatech (since 2002)
• Professor emeritus of Production Engineering and Machine Tools (since 2002)

Honours

• Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1988)
• Dr. honoris causa (Dr.-Ing. E.h.) of the University of Erlangen-Nuernberg (1992)
• Frederik W. Taylor Research Medal of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, SME (1994)
• Dr. honoris causa (Dr. h.c.) of the Aristoteles University of Thessaloniki (1998)
• Werner Heisenberg Medal of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (2000)
• Russel S. Springer Professor University of Berkeley (2001)
• Honorary Fellow of the International Academy for Production Engineering, CIRP (since 2003)
• Georg-Schlesinger-Award of the City of Berlin (2003)
• Dr. honoris causa (Dr. h.c.) of the Keio-University, Tokyo (2004)
• Fellow of University Bremen (2008)

Fields of interest

• technology of manufacturing processes
• laser technology
• machine tools
• factory automation