Speakers and Authors

• Prof. Reijo Tuokko, Head of Department of Production Engineering, Tampere University of Technology
• Juhani Rantalainen, Director, Business Development and Marketing, Fastems Oy Ab
• Dr. Stig Gustavson, Chairman of the Board, Konecranes Oyj 
   
• Prof. Francesco Jovane, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
• Sauli Eloranta, VP, STX Europe Oy
• Esa-Matti Puputti, VP, Technology Strategy and Quality, Nokia Corp. 
   
• Prof. Dr.-Ing. Christian Brecher, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
• Dr. Ram Sriram, NIST, USA
• Dr. Takashi Inoue, Hitachi Corp., Japan 
   
• Dr. Andrea Gentili, European Commission
• Svenåke Berglie, Managing Director, FKG, Sweden
• Hannu Berger, Senior Vice President, Business Development, Valmet Automotive Oy
• Johnny K. Larsson, Technical Specialist BIW Joining Technologies, Supervisor Advanced Body Concepts, Senior Car Body Design Engineer, Volvo Car Corporation, Sweden 
   
• Simon Pollard, VP, Manufacturing Operations and Execution, SAP EMEA
• Martin Hägele, FhG-IPA, Germany
• Sami Humala, Head of Finland Trade Center, Finpro, Central & South East Europe 
   
• Prof. Suk-Hwan Suh, Postech, Korea
• Dr. Andrew Dugenske, Manufacturing Research Center, Georgia Tech, USA
• Jörgen Hedström, Prodatec Oy 
   
• Dr. Massimo Mattucci, New Business Development, Comau S.p.A., Italy
• Fulvio Rusina, Director, Comau S.p.A., Italy
• Pekka Heikonen, CEO, Pemamek Oy
• Mika Laitinen, CTO, Master Automation Group Oy 
   
• Prof. Seppo Torvinen, CTO, Formia Technology Group
• Harri Lehtinen, BU Director, Fastems Oy Ab
• Juha Mäkitalo, COO, Finn-Power Oy
• Dr. Klaus Schröer, Manager, Volkswagen AG
• Dr. Volker Katschinski, Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology, Germany 
   
• Dr. Rikardo Bueno, Fatronik-Tecnalia, Spain
• Jon Agirre Ibarbia, Fatronik-Tecnalia, Spain
• Dr. Akira Tezuka, Deputy Director, Advanced Manufacturing Research Institute, AIST, Japan
• Prof. Duc Pham, University of Cardiff, UK
• Ricardo Velez, R&D Manager, Visual Components Oy
• Dr. Martijn Rooker, Profactor GmbH, Austria 
   
• Sakari Kokkonen, Production Manager, Sandvik Mining and Construction Oy
• Risto Pihlanen, Fastems Oy Ab
• Teemu-Pekka  Ahonen, Fastems Oy Ab
• Jani Granholm,  Manager, SW R&D, Fastems Oy Ab
• Risto Niemi, Fastems Oy Ab 
   
• Jukka Salminen, President and CEO, Formia Technology Group Oy
• Reijo Lylykangas, CTO, Formia Emissions Control Oy
• Pertti Mäki-Välkkilä, Movia Imageneering Oy
• Mika Illi, Sales Director, Formia Vesme Oy
• Kari Anttila, BUD, Formia Vesme Oy 
   
• Antti Kuusisaari, Product Manager, Finn-Power Oy
• Martti Ranki, Fläkt Woods Oy
• Jan Muys, Prima Industrie SpA, Italy 
   
• Harri Kankaanpää, Sandvik Mining and Construction Oy
• Kai Salminen, Tampere University of Technology
• Harri Nieminen, Fastems Oy Ab
• Timo Rainio, Technology Centre Hermia Oy
  
  
• Bob Repovs, President & COO, Samco Machinery Ltd., Canada

Prof. Reijo Tuokko

Juhani Rantalainen

Juhani Rantalainen. Born 1951. M.Sc.(eng.) at Tampere University of Technology 1977. Currently member of the management board, responsible for Marketing and Business Development at Fastems OYAB which is the leading supplier of factory automation technology for metal industry. Mr. Rantalainen has long experience factory automation specially in automating metal cutting machining processies. 1977-1987 he worked in various management, projecting and sales support posts at Valmet Linnavuori Works supplying special machine tools for metal industry. 1986 he set up the specialized division at Valmet to develop and manufacture Flexible Manufacturing Systems. 1987-1995 he worked in several major excecutive posts at Robcon OY, Työstökonekeskus OY and Mercantile OYAB. Since 1995 Mr. Rantalainen has been at Fastems in charge of  FMS division and later the whole manufacturing operation. From 2005 up to the date he has been responsible for the company marketing and business development. As a member of several national development program boards Mr. Rantalainen has participated in discussion of developing relationship between industry and education. Member of the high level board of Manufuture.

Dr. Stig Gustavson

Graduation and honours: M.Sc.(Eng.), Helsinki Institute of Technology (1971), Dr.Tech. (Hon.) Tampere University of Technology, 1997

Career:  

Konecranes Plc: President & CEO, 1994 – 2005

KONE Oy, 1982 – 1994: Director (KONE Roxon, 1982 – 1985), President (KONE Wood, Hollola, 1985 – 1988), President (KONE Cranes, Hyvinkää, 1988 – 1994)

Sponsor Oy, 1978 - 1982: Technical Director (1978 – 1979), Managing Director (Bruun System Ab, 1979 – 1981), Managing Director (Forrex, 1981 – 1982),

Raha-automaattiyhdistys (Works Manager, 1976 – 1978)

Oy Wärtsilä Ab, 1970 - 1976: Production Manager (Nuutajärvi 1970 – 1974), Production Manager (Järvenpää 1974 – 1976)

TKY-Group, 1969 – 1970: Assistant Managing Director

Boards:   Konecranes Plc (Chairman of the Board), Oy Mercantile Ab (Chairman of the Board), Dynea Oy (Chairman of the Board),     Handelsbanken in Finland (Chairman of the Board), Cramo Oyj (Chairman of the Board), Oy Helvar Merca Ab (Board Member),              Vaisala Oyj (Board Member)

Trusteeships: Tampere University of Technology (Chairman of the Advisory Committee), Arcada Polytechnic (Chairman of the Board, Varma (Supervisory Board), National SISU 2010 -Innovative Manufacture Programme (Chair of the Management Group)

Prof. Francesco Jovane

Professor of Integrated Production Systems, at Politecnico di Milano. More than 200 papers, in the field of manufacturing and innovation. Grandfather of  Manufuture  and author, with Westkamper and Williams, of the book “The Manufuture Road”. Vice-president for Research of the Manufuture  European Technological Platform. Member of “Nanosciences, Nanotechnologies, Materials and new Production Technologies – NMP” Programme Committee, 7th Framework Programme, European Commission. Promoter of Eureka FAMOS and Factory Umbrella Projects and ”Manufuture Industry” Eureka Cluster. High Level Representative for Italy within the Eureka Initiative. Fellow and President (2002-2003) of CIRP, The International Academy for Production Engineering. Recipient of the SME Albert M. Sargent Progress Award of the SME (Society of Manufacturing Engineers), for technical accomplishments in the field of manufacturing processes, methods, or systems.

Sauli Eloranta

Sauli Eloranta is Vice President, Product Development & Innovation at STX Europe Cruise & Ferries since June, 2008.

Mr. Eloranta is responsible for the development of novel ship concepts at the Cruise & Ferries sales organization.

Mr. Eloranta has been employed with STX Europe since 1988. He has held various Design & R&D-related positions at STX Cruise & Ferries, STX Cabins and at Aker Philadelphia Shipyard in Finland, France and in the USA.

Mr. Eloranta is a member of the Board at FIMECC, the new Finnish entity for high-end R&D. He is chairman for the R&D council at AFMI (Association for Finnish Maritime Industries).

Mr. Eloranta holds a M.Sc degree in Naval Architecture.

Esa-Matti Puputti

Vice President

Technology, Strategy and Quality

Demand Supply Network Management

Nokia 

Esa-Matti Puputti is responsible for Technology, Strategy and Quality at Nokia Demand Supply Network Management. All together, he has spent 10 years at Nokia in a wide range of roles, including heading global Customer Logistics, and prior roles leading Operations and Logistics in Europe, Middle East and Africa as well as heading manufacturing technology development globally. Earlier in his career Esa-Matti worked seven years at ABB, latest position as Vice President, Technology in ABB Corporate Research Ltd. Cultural experience Esa-Matti has gained by working in Japan at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Kyoto University during 1990-1992.

He received a Master of Science and Licentiate in Technology degrees from the Oulu University in Finland.

Prof. Christian Brecher

Since January 1, 2004, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Christian Brecher, has been the Ordinary Professor for Machine Tools at the Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL) of the RWTH Aachen as well as the Director of the Department for Production Machines at the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT.
After finishing his academic studies in mechanical engineering, he started his professional career first as a research assistant and later as a team leader in the department for machine investigation and evaluation at the WZL. From 1999 to April 2001, he was responsible for the department of machine tools in his capacity as a Senior Engineer. After a short spell as a consultant in the aviation industry.
Professor Brecher was appointed in August 2001 as the Director for Development at the DS Technologie Werkzeugmaschinenbau GmbH, Mönchengladbach, where he bore the responsibility for construction and development until December 2003.
Prof. Brecher has received numerous honours and awards including the Springorum Commemorative Coin, the Borchers Medal of the RWTH Aachen, the Scholarship Award of the Association of German Tool Manufacturers (Verein Deutscher Werkzeugmaschinenfabriken VDW) and the Otto Kienzle Memorial Coin of the Scientific Society for Production Technology (Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft für Produktionstechnik WGP).

Dr. Ram D. Sriram

Ram D. Sriram is currently leading the Design and Process group in the Manufacturing Systems Integration Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where he conducts research on standards for interoperability of computer-aided design systems. He also holds a part time appointment in the Information Technology Laboratory, where he conducts research on biomaging and  healthcare informatics. Prior to that he was on the engineering faculty (1986-1994) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and was instrumental in setting up the Intelligent Engineering Systems Laboratory. At MIT, Sriram initiated the MIT-DICE project, which was one of the pioneering projects in collaborative engineering. Sriram has co-authored or authored more than 200 publications in computer-aided engineering and health care informatics, including several books.   Sriram was a founding co-editor of the International Journal for AI in Engineering. In 1989, he was awarded a Presidential Young Investigators Award from the National Science Foundation, U.S.A. Sriram has a B.S. from IIT, Madras, India, and an M.S. and a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA. Sriram is a Fellow of ASME, a Senior Member of IEEE, a Member (life) of ACM, a member of ASCE, and a member of AAAS.

Dr. Takashi Inoue

Takashi Inoue received his B.S. in synthetic organic chemistry from Chiba University in 1976 and his  Ph.D. degree in photochemistry and photophysics of organic polymers from Tokyo Institute of Technology in  1981. He has been working for Hitachi Ltd.,PERL from 1981 doing wide variety of R&D including, submicrometer photoresists, mainframe computer packaging, thin film multilayer circuit fabrication, electroless gold plating, lithium ion battery and TFT-LCD.  In 1992, he obtained “Outstanding Paper Award” at IEEE Electric Components and Technology Conference for a microchip packaging technology in mainframe  computers. He also received “Technical Achievement Award” from The Surface Finishing Society of Japan for a non-cyanide electroless gold plating technology in 2000. He has been involved in the TFT-LCD process research for recent 8 years focusing on LCD manufacturing process.  His work on LCD alignment process had  received Advanced Display of the Year 2006 at Fine-tech Japan and Japanese Liquid Crystal Society Award. His most recent interests are in medical diagnostics and life science.

Dr. Andrea Gentili

Andrea Gentili is a mechanical engineer graduated at the University of Pisa in Italy. After some experience in industry as production manager in a company in the consumer-goods sector, in 1995 he joined the Ecole de Mines d'Albi in France as researcher in the field of numerical models and optimisation. In 1996 he came back to industry and joined, as technical director, an American company in the field of engineering. In 1998 he became associated of a French SME providing software development and engineering services for the automotive and aerospace sectors.

In 2001 he joined the European Commission’s Research Directorate-General taking the responsibility in the NMP programme for the machining industrial sector, followed by the intelligent mechatronics and micro-manufacturing. Since 2004 he took responsibility for the setting-up and running of the European Manufuture Platform and the horizontal activities with the European Technology Platforms related to manufacturing.

In January 2009, he has been appointed responsible for the Commission for the "Factories of the future" Public-Private Partnership included in the European Economic Recovery Plan adopted by the European Commission in November 2008.

Andrea Gentili is also Programme Officer for several successful EU projects such as EUPASS, NEXT, AFFIX, I*PROMS, EU-MECHA-PRO and ECOFIT.

Svenåke Berglie

Svenåke Berglie is managing director of FKG, the Scandinavian association of Automotive Suppliers. FKG is also a member of Clepa, the European association of automotive suppliers. Svenåke Berglie has a MBA from the School of Economics in Gothenburg and has worked in different positions in the automotive supplier industry since 1980.

Hannu Berger

Senior VP, Business Development

Valmet Automotive Inc.

Graduation: MSc (Automotive and Mechanical Engineering), 1975, Helsinki University of  Technology
Employments: Suomen Autoteollisuus Ab (Sisu-Auto Oy, manufacturer of SISU trucks): 1974-75
Valmet Automotive Inc. (until 1996: Saab-Valmet Ab): Project engineer Manufacturing (1975-1978), Manager, Product Engineering (1978 – 1987), Divisional Manager Product Planning (1987-1996), Vice President Business Development (1996-2001), Project Director, Porsche Project (1996-2000), Senior Vice President, Business Development (since 2001), Member of the Strategy Council of Valmet Automotive
Membershifts: SATL, The Association of Automotive Engineers in Finland; VDI, Verein Deutscher Ingenieure; Turku Chamber of Commerce, member of the  Foreign Trade Council; Turku Polytechnic, member of the Advisory Council of the Automotive and Logistics Department
B.o.D. Membershifts: ADCO OY (Predecessor of Finavia, composite parts for aviation, ended); Euromotive OY (Sister Company of Valmet Automotive, ended), SAARSET OY, Chairman of the B.o.D. (2008-)
Language qualifications: Finnish, Swedish, German, English, French, Spanish, Latin

Johnny K. Larsson

Johnny K Larsson graduated from the Technical University of Lund, Sweden, in 1975. After spending eight years as an engineer in heavy truck industry, he joined Volvo Cars in 1986. Since then he has been responsible for the R&D programme of the Body Engineering Department, covering areas such as materials technology, joining and assembly methods, structural analysis and simulations.
During the last years he has focused his technical skills on joining technologies for recent and future car body concepts and is therefore acting as project manager for a number of exercises in this field within the company. He is also engaged in different international projects dealing with joining techniques. In 2005 he was appointed "Technical Specialist BIW Joining Technologies" and has the overall responsibility within the Ford Motor Company/Volvo Group in this field.
He is a well-known and recognized person in the international BIW community through his many contacts with fellow colleagues at other car companies. He has also served as session chairman at numerous automotive and laser conferences such as SAE, FISITA, ISATA, NOLAMP, LANE etc. He is also contributing to the continuing education of European automotive engineers through his involvement in organizations like EUROMOTOR and ELA (European Laser Academy).
Mr. Larsson holds a number of trusts e.g. in the Swedish Welding Commission, the Corrosion and Metals Research Institute,  the Swedish Agency for Innovation Systems and is the chairman of the Swedish Association for Laser Applications in the Manufacturing Industry.

Simon Pollard

As a graduate in mathematics, Simon has in excess of 20 years experience operating across a broad range of industrial sector markets matching best and next practice software solutions to the business critical needs of medium to large multinational corporations.  His more recent work history includes senior management positions in SAP as VP Discrete Manufacturing, Oracle as VP Industrial Sector and AMR Research as VP Research EMEA.  As an expert in supply chain management and manufacturing operations he as also served on the European board of the Supply Chain Council.  His current focus as VP Manufacturing for SAP is to help customers achieve the next wave of best practices with synchronised and adaptive industry processes that operate across Plant and Enterprise boundaries.  Simon is often quoted in the media and regularly presents at supply chain, manufacturing and technology conferences.

Martin Hägele

Martin Haegele received his degree as Diplom-Ingenieur in mechanical engineering from the University of Stuttgart in 1989 and his degree of Master of Science in Engineering Science (Solid Mechanics and Materials Science) from the George Washington University in Washington DC, USA. In 1989 he started working as a research engineer in industry. In 1992 he transferred as a researcher in robotics to Fraunhofer IPA. In 1993 he was promoted to Head of Department ”Robot Systems” and has been appointed a member of the Fraunhofer IPA managing board in 2001. His research interests cover the wide area of robotics automation both from an application and the technological side. He is a specialist in mechatronic design, kinematics, sensors and computer controls. Martin Haegele is a 2007 Engelberger Award winner.

Sami Humala

Sami Humala is the Head of Finpro Czech Republic and market expert member of Finpro’s global team for manufacturing. Humala is naturally focussed on the Central-East Europe. Finpro is a global expert network established by Finnish companies, with a national task of promoting the growth and competitiveness of Finnish companies through internationalization. Sami Humala has been working for Finpro since 2000 - when he started as a market analyst in the Czech Republic. Thereafter his tasks have varied from business consultancy for SME’s to industry liaison and coordination of Finnish commercial co-operation with large science projects such as CERN. Before moving to Prague in 2008 he was working as a senior consultant in Budapest.  Presently he is focussed on manufacturing in CEE and follows the markets from a Finnish and global perspective. Latest projects include a comparative study on the cost levels and business environment of 12 European countries done in co-operation with the federation of Finnish of Technology Industries.

Prof. Suk-Hwan Suh

Prof. Suk-Hwan Suh received the PhD degree in Manufacturing Engineering from The Ohio State University at Columbus in 1986. He is currently a professor in the department of industrial & management engineering and the director of the Center for Ubiquitous Manufacturing in the Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH). His research interests include ubiquitous information engineering and technologies for realizing ubiquitous design and manufacturing called UbiDMR, sustainability engineering, product lifecycle information standards. He authored several books including Theory and Design of CNC System (Springer, 2008), and ISO standards ISO 14649 Part 12 and Part 121. He was Convener of TC184/SC1/WG7 for establishing Manufacturing Information Standards, and currently Project Leader of ISO TC184/SC1/WG7.

Dr. Andrew Dugenske

Andrew Dugenske is the Manager of Research Services and a Principal Research Faculty Member at the Georgia Institute of Technology's Manufacturing Research Center (MARC) where he leads the Factory Information Systems group.  He is also the president of GTC, a software company that provides information technology solutions to manufacturing enterprises.  In addition, Mr. Dugenske is a State of Georgia registered professional engineer.  For over 15 years, Mr. Dugenske has lead industry-funded projects in the area of electronics assembly, software systems for manufacturing and supply chain issues.  He currently acts as an industry liaison for Georgia Tech, conducts short courses, publishes, and consults in the area of Factory Information Systems (FIS).  He is a member of the National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (NEMI) FIS working and implementation groups, the NEMI roadmapping team, several IPC technical committees, the JISSO International Council, the Georgia Tech Center for Board Assembly Research, and the joint NEMI-IPC CAMX standardization committees.  Prior to his arrival at MARC, Mr. Dugenske was a Research Engineer at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) from 1986-1993, where he developed computer controlled radar positioning systems, conducted structural analysis using finite element analysis, and provided design expertise.  He received a B.S. from the University of Illinois, an M.S. from the Georgia Institute of Technology both in Mechanical Engineering.

Jörgen Hedström

Jörgen Hedström Sales Director of Prodatec Oy a company working with Information Logistic Solutions such as production process software applications, OEE solutions, monitoring, simulation and visualisations.

The functional solutions working in real time is something we developed and applied globally since 15 years. We work after a theme that "To know is to be able to".

Jörgen has 20 years business and development experience within the production and information logistic area, the past 10 years in FlexLink Globally.

Dr. Massimo Mattucci 

In 1968 he received his Doctorate Degree in Nuclear Engineering at the Polytechnics of Turin and in 1969 he started his career in the Machine Tool Design Department of Morando SpA, a Turning Machine Tool Company.
  In the late 70’s when Morando merged into Comau he had the Industrial Engineering responsibility in the Comau Machine Tool’s Technical Department.
  In the 80’s he was appointed Vice President Engineering in the new organization of Comau in the USA. In 1988 he entered the Comau Steering Committee with the responsibility of all Comau Group Product Development (including R&D, Engineering and Design).
  Since 1994 he was responsible also of the Comau Group Business Development,  following the internationalization process and the worldwide growth of Comau (including M&A).
  Since 2004 he has been appointed Comau Group Executive Vice President, for Advanced Engineering and Quality. 
  Since August 2005 he was appointed Chief Operating Officer of Comau Powertrain Systems Business Unit. He is currently involved in Comau New Business Development, with focus on diversified industries.

Pekka Heikonen

Pekka Heikonen is President and CEO at Pemamek Oy, the manufacture of innovative production automation for the global metal industry. Pekka Heikonen has started his career at Pemamek Oy in 1978 and in 1982 he became the CEO. The owner of the company he has been since 1988. Mr. Heikonen holds an engineering degree from the Polytechnic in Turku.

For many years Pekka Heikonen has also had a very active role in different organisations such as The Federation of Finnish Technology Industries and Confederation of Finnish Industries.

Mika Laitinen

Graduation: M.Sc. (Eng.), Lappeenranta University of Technology 1994. Mika Laitinen is TCO at Master Automation Group Oy since 2002. Mr. Laitinen is responsible for concept design and product development of company’s robotic solutions. Master Automation Group is global automation supplier for assembly and packing automation for electronics industry, finishing and milling applications for metal and composite industry and material handling solutions for food industry. Mr. Laitinen has 18 years of experience in robotic business covering especially application areas of vision guided robotics, off-line programmed robotic milling and finishing applications.

Prof. Seppo Torvinen

Seppo Torvinen is a Professor of Production Engineering at Tampere University of Technology, Finland. His areas of interest and expertise are Production Systems Design, Demand Driven Supply Networks, Industrial information systems, Sustainability and socio-technical systems design.

During his several sabbatical leaves, Professor Torvinen has advised several Finnish World Class companies and, among other companies, acted as a Technology Director at the Formia Technology Group. He is also Member of the Board of Directors in several Nordic World Class concerns. He has been working with the European Commission as evaluator, rapporteur and reviewer since 1995 starting with the ESPRIT programme until the present FP7. In 2008, Professor Torvinen acted as an independent observer in the monitoring of FP7 ICT 3rd Call.

Harri Lehtinen

Harri Lehtinen is working as Director at Fastems Oy, and is responsible for Product Business Line, which developing automation products for FMS and robot applications. Before joining Fastems on 2007, he has been working for Metso Minerals in different sales & marketing and product management positions, including Asia.

He has graduated from Tampere University of Technology 1989 and his master thesis was related to cost comparisons of different production methods.

Juha Mäkitalo

Juha Mäkitalo is the Chief Operating Officer of Finn-Power Oy. Mr. Mäkitalo is responsible for Finn-Power Group R&D, Product Management, Sourcing, Project Management and Installation activities and for two manufacturing plants at Finland. He has been working for Finn-Power since 1996 mainly in various positions at R&D, from which last five years as Vice President of R&D. Mr. Mäkitalo has a position in Finn-Power Group Executive Committee. Mr. Mäkitalo has been a member of board for several national research programmes and is holding a position in FIMECC Oy Research Council. He has done his studies at Tampere University of Technology in the field of Automation Engineering.

Finn-Power Group is a multinational group of companies specializing in sheet metal working technologies. Since 4th February 2008, Finn-Power is owned by Italy-based stock listed company Prima Industrie S.p.A. Prima Industrie Group turnover 2008 was 367 MEur and is employing about 1600 persons.

Dr. Klaus Schröer

Dr.-Ing. Dipl.-Math. Klaus Schröer, geb. 1956, studierte Mathematik und Informatik in Berlin. Es folgten 4 Jahre in den Bereichen Bildverarbeitung und Zeichenkodierung bei einem Berliner Unternehmen der Druckvorbereitung. Von 1987-99 leitete er am Fraunhofer-IPK das Arbeitsgebiet Kalibrierung und Vermessung von und mit Robotern in Industrie und Medizin. Von 1999 bis 2000 leitete er die Technologieplanung im Karosseriebau bei der zentralen Markenplanung der Volkswagen AG, wo er danach bis 2003 verantwortlich war für Planung und Anlauf des Karosseriebaus für das Auto5000-Projekt von Volkswagen ("Touran") und damit für die drastische Ausweitung des Einsatzes der Lasertechnik im Karosseriebau. Seit 2003 ist er zuständig für die Karosseriebaukonzepte zukünftiger Fahrzeuge der Marke Volkswagen mit den Schwerpunkten: Standardisierung, Optimierung, Qualitätskonzepte und Digitale Fabrik.

Dr.-Ing. Dipl.-Math. Klaus Schröer, born 1956, studied Mathematics and Computer Science in Berlin, followed by 4 years in the field of image processing and character contour coding at a company in the pre-printing sector. 1987-99 he headed R&D in the field of calibration and measurement of and with robots in industrie and medicine at Fraunhofer-IPK. In 1999 he became member of Volkswagen management und headed technology planning (body shop) at the central planning of the Volkwagen brand in Wolfsburg. From 2000 to 2003 he was responsible for planning, installation and launch of the Auto5000 body-shop of the "Touran" in Wolfsburg, and thus for the dramatic expansion of laser joining techniques in body-in-white manufacturing. Since 2003, he is responsible for future body-in-white concepts of Volkswagen brand with emphasis on standardisation, optimisation, quality concepts and digital factory.

Volker Katschinski

Volker Katschinski has studied Aeronautics at the Technical University Berlin. He started to work at the Fraunhofer Institute IPK in 1986 in the area of robotics. He was responsible in many national and European projects for the simulation topics. Now he is a project manager of the EU integrated project PISA.

Dr. Rikardo Bueno

Dr. Rikardo Bueno  is the Director for the Scientific Policy in Fatronik – Tecnalia where he has been working for nearly 20 years, since its beginnings as a small industrial R&D unit. The organisation has become, together with the rest of Tecnalia, one of the biggest players in private R&D organizations in Europe with around 1500 researchers dedicated mostly to industrial research. Fatronik-Tecnalia has always been active in the European research field, and Dr. Bueno coordinates a big integrated project (NEXT – Next Generation Production Systems) and participates in the ongoing activities of the European Technology Platform Manufuture and its related PPP “Factories of the Future”.

Jon Agirre Ibarbia

Mr. Jon Agirre Ibarbia graduated in 1991 at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, in Telecommunication Engineering. He has a master on Industrial Software Engineering (1995), at Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea-Universidad del País Vasco. Since 1995, Jon Agirre Ibarbia is working in FATRONIK as co-ordinator in R&D Projects related to the application of Information & Control Technologies. He has been evaluator of R&D proposals for the Spanish R&D administration, French National Research Agency (ANR) and for the European Commission. Chair of the sub-committee on Infrastructure (Manufacturing) of the IEEE: IES - Technical Committee on Industrial Agents (http://www.tcia.ipb.pt). Participates in ManuFuture (European Technology Platform on Future Manufacturing Technologies), in EUROP (European Robotics Platform), he belongs to the executive board of EUROP, taking part in the core
group on Service Robotics and is member of the new board of EURON (European
Robotics Network). In the new_EURON, Jon Agirre Ibarbia is member of the new board of the new_EURON (initiative to pursuit the EURON activities). And participates as Technology leader in the Production Advanced Control (PAC) cluster in NoE I*PROMS (Innovative Production Machines and Systems).

Dr. Akira Tezuka

Dr. Akira TEZUKA is a deputy director of Advanced Manufacturing Research Institute (AMRI) in National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Japan. He obtained BS (Mechanical Engineering) at Univ. of Tokyo in 1983, MS (Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics) at Univ. of Michigan in 1989, and PhD at Univ. of Tokyo in 1994. Starting the career as a researcher in Hitachi Ltd. in 1984, after the experience in Industrial Products Research Institute, Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, both in METI, and Stanford University as a visiting scholar, his current research management interests are function based performance design flame work for product planning, including the implementation schemes for Design for X (DfX) methodology both in hardware and software senses, while his consistent research major is multi-scale/multi-physics computational mechanics on extended-FEM with the flavor of adaptivity and parallel computing for the real application for manufacturing fields. He is currently General Council of International Association of Computational Mechanics and one of the IMS (Intelligent Manufacturing Systems) academic members.

Prof. Duc Truong Pham

Duc Truong PHAM is Professor of Computer-Controlled Manufacture and Director of the Manufacturing Engineering Centre at Cardiff University.

He obtained his BE (Mechanical) with First-Class Honours, PhD and DEng degrees from the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. 

He has directed projects on knowledge-based systems for manufacturing design and quality control, robot vision and automated visual inspection, neural networks for non-linear systems identification and control, rapid prototyping and tooling, micro fabrication, virtual reality and multi-media intelligent product manuals.

He has produced over seventy PhD graduates, written more than 400 technical papers, co-authored five books and edited nine other books in his research areas. 
He has received several prizes including the Sir Joseph Whitworth prize (1996 and 2000), Thomas Stephens Group Prize (2001 and 2003) and Donald Julius Groen Prize (2004), all from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, the Institution of Engineering and Technology, and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

Ricardo Velez

Ricardo Velez graduated from Universidad Regiomontana in Monterrey, Mexico with a B.Sc. in Industrial Electronics and Control, and holds a M.Sc. in Automation Technology from Tampere University of Technology, Finland. He is currently the Research and Development Manager for Visual Components Oy, a company specializing in 3D simulation and visualization software for the manufacturing industry. He is responsible for the mid-to-long term research and development strategy for the software family and is the project manager for all national and international research projects, as well as industrial customer projects. He is also involved in high-level strategic sales and training activities. His expertise lie on 3D CAD, production planning and scheduling, supply chain management, modeling and simulation and change management of production operations.

Jani Granholm

Jani Granholm is working as a manager for software research and development at Fastems Oy. Graduated from Tampere University of Technology 1979. Joined Fastems 1980 and has been involved in developing embedded software since then. He is responsible for the software architecture of Fastems control systems and the applied software platforms.

Teemu-Pekka Ahonen

Teemu-Pekka Ahonen graduated from Tampere University of Technology with a M.Sc. in Production Engineering. Since 2006 he’s been involved in various robotics-related tasks at Fastems ranging from mechanical design to product concept definition and other R&D projects. Currently he is working as a sales support specialist at the robotics sales support department.

Jukka Salminen

Jukka Salminen is Chairman and CEO of Formia Technology Group. The Formia Group of companies has a common slogan, Smart Flow, which is also Formia's common mission. The aim is to produce smart solutions for the customers at all times. Jukka Salminen has a long career as an entrepreneur and leader of different technology companies.  

His work experience includes:

Taxation Inspector, State of Finland, 77-79; Controller, National Factory in Saudi Arabia Fasteners Factory), 78-79; President and CEO, Normark Finland Group (Outdoors Gears, Fishing Tackle, Hunting and Boating), 80-95; Executive Vice President, Safematic (Sealing and Lubrication Solutions), 95-99; President, Safematic North America in Georgia, USA, 97-98; President and CEO, Done Solutions Plc (Information Technologies), 99-01; Chairman, Done Solutions Plc, 01-02; Chairman, Reach-U Solutions Plc (Mobile Technologies), 01-02; Chairman and Owner, ERM Equity (Mergers & Aquisitions), 02-; President and CEO, Formia Technology Group (Sheet Metal Solutions), 05-06; Chairman and CEO, Formia Technology Group, 07-. His hobbies include: Flyfishing, boating and Iberian Peninsula

Bob Repovs

Bob Repovs is President & COO of Samco Machinery in Toronto, Canada. Samco employs over 100 people globally in the Rollforming (cold steel forming) industry with manufacturing facilities in Canada and India. As rollforming equipment leaders, Samco contributes to the constant innovation of systems relating to automotive, building construction, HVAC, material handling and other cold roll formed products.  Bob has been with Samco for 12 years and has held positions in Quality & Continuous Improvement, Human Resources, Project Management and VP of Operations. He is a “process driven” leader who grew up in the business - Samco was founded by his father in 1972. Bob has led project teams at Samco to implement ISO 9001, a cross-functional ERP and Project Management System, and a robust design and engineering system. He has spoken at International conferences including “Doing Business in India”, the effects of using “Finite Element Analysis on roll design” and Project Management philosophies and approaches.