TU Wien

Technische Universitaet Wien (TU Wien) was founded in 1815 and is located in the heart of Vienna. It is the largest technical university in Austria with about 30.000 students. About 3.700 out of 4.800 employees are scientific staff. The annually budget consists of about 260 Mio € public funding plus about 90 Mio € project and third party funding. The facultyof Mechanical and Industrial Engineering has about 900 beginners each year and offers a wide range of engineering majors within the three main curricula mechanical engineering, engineering management and plant engineering (both bachelor and consecutive master). For the project proposal at hand, the chair of Mechanical Engineering Informatics and Virtual Product Development (MIVP), part of the Institute of Engineering Design and Logistics Engineering, is taking the lead role for the involvement of TU Wien. The institute has an internationally recognized expertise in a wide range of product development, from the methodological side (design methodology, Ecodesign) over the core application areas of machine elements up to the level of IT support in terms of virtual product development. MIVP research group, led by Prof. Detlef Gerhard, was established in 2006 and is responsible for all topics related to Computer Aided Design and Engineering (Virtual Product Development) and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) in research and teaching. This includes methodological aspects (systems engineering, design methodology, integrated product development) as well as tool aspects for 3D modelling, design automation, knowledge-based engineering and product information management. The Institute has extensive hardware and software equipment in the relevant field. The Virtual Product Development Lab consists of more than 100 High-End Graphic workstations equipped with all major PLM and CAx applications, a wide range of peripherals, e.g. a VR powerwall, large format plotter and 3D printers for rapid prototyping and a virtualized server infrastructure for hosting various PDM systems and other industrial IT applications. MIVP is also responsible for provisioning PLM solutions to research partners and to perform required customization and software integration such as CAD. The group provides course and training material independently from specific CAx and PLM tools.

The MIVP offers a large number of lectures of different types and forms, which are related to the field of mechanical engineering informatics and virtual product development: Engineering Design Training, Virtual Product Development, Product Lifecycle Management, Methodology of 3D- CAD Engineering, Integrative Product Creation and Design Competition. In addition, the research group is involved in many educational research projects with public funding at both national and European level. MIVP has carried out three nationally funded projects together with 6 vocational schools in Austria as partners. The aim of the first project was to establish a central PLM solution for all partner schools in order to create up-to-date management skills for the participating schools. In the following project the solution was adapted to create a basis for cross-school projects and especially enhance functions for eco-design and life cycle assessment (LCA). In a subsequent, recently completed project, systems engineering (SE) approaches within the design courses of the vocational partner schools will be introduced and the required PLM system integration of special SE tools will be implemented. Furthermore, MIVP was and is involved in various ERASMUS + Key Action 2 „Strategic Partnership“ projects: RAPROMISE, CASProD, ELPID and CResDET. At national level, MIVP is currently one main partner of the project TU Wien Pilot Factory for Industry 4.0 (http://pilotfabrik.tuwien.ac.at/en/). A special focus of this project is the integration of intelligent product engineering and intelligent production both from a research and a training point of view with regard to the development of special skills and the transfer of students and also engineers. The latter aspect is also particularly aimed at with the nationally funded project „Digital Transformation 4.0“ (http://www.digitrans.at/). Involved employees in key positions:

Ao.Univ.-Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. techn. Manfred Grafinger studied mechanical engineering at TU Vienna and graduated as Dipl.- Ing. in 1991. Since 1992 he has been a research associate at the MIVP and received his doctorate in 1996 at TU Vienna on the subject of „Investigation of the deformation of Bowden cables“. His research focus is in the field of computer-aided product development, especially the design and implementation of software-based automation solutions for integrated CAx process chains. Prof. Grafinger completed his habilitation thesis at TU Vienna in 2011 and holds the „venia legendi“ at Virtual Product Development. He has written numerous scientific publications (peer-reviewed) in books, journals or at international conferences. As senior researcher and lecturer in the ELPID project he has a broad experience in distance learning environments for project-based education in engineering.