New construction for the future topic "Personalized Production"

Rendering of the Fraunhofer new building "Personalized Production". © Birk Heilmeyer and Frenzel Architects

Prof. Thomas Bauernhansl, Dr. Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut, and Prof. Stephan Birk at the ceremonial groundbreaking. © Fraunhofer IPA/Photo: Rainer Bez

Dr. Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut during her speech at the Birkhof area. © Fraunhofer IPA/Photo: Rainer Bez

Prof. Thomas Bauernhansl, Dr. Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut and Prof. Stephan Birk … © Fraunhofer IPA/Photo: Rainer Bez

... as allies to give a face to the future topic "Personalized Production". © Fraunhofer IPA / Photo: Rainer Bez

The Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology and Automation IPA is getting a new building in Stuttgart-Vaihingen. With the groundbreaking ceremony on September 27, Baden-Württemberg's Minister of Economics Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut, together with Thomas Bauernhansl, Director of the Fraunhofer IPA, and architect Stephan Birk, symbolically opened the construction site.

With the groundbreaking, the construction work for the new Fraunhofer research building officially begins. Three research centers and a conference area will be located on the Birkhof site under the umbrella of Building Section V "Personalized Production". The Fraunhofer IPA has been researching this future-oriented topic in various organizational units on the opposite site so far.

Response to the Individualization Trend and New Digital Business Models

"Especially in saturated markets, as we find in Europe and the industrialized world, the importance of individualization and personalization of products will continue to increase. Companies are currently facing the challenge of producing these products economically with new technologies and processes. With this construction project, the state government of Baden-Württemberg, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, and Fraunhofer are enabling the content-related and personnel expansion of research at the Fraunhofer IPA in this field," emphasizes Dr. Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut, Minister for Economics, Labor, and Tourism of Baden-Württemberg.

The new building, including initial equipment, has an investment volume of around 37 million euros, which is financed equally by federal and state funds as special funding. The land on the Birkhof site is provided by the state at a reduced ground rent.

"In addition to modern production technologies, so-called cyber-physical systems (CPS) are enablers for the economical production of personalized goods, which are equipped with cognitive intelligence. Through their networking and distributed intelligence, they enable managing the high complexity of personalized production systems and processes," explains Professor Thomas Bauernhansl.

Institute Director Professor Alexander Sauer adds: "A central aspect of our research strategy is to develop technologies and structures for the industrial manufacturing of personalized products in single units and to make them usable for companies. Especially additive manufacturing, with its growing variety of processes and materials, opens up great potential as a key technology for personalized production."

These key competencies of personalized production are researched and implemented jointly with industry in the Center for Cyber Cognitive Intelligence (CCI), the Center for Cyber-Physical Systems (ZCPS), and the Center for Additive Manufacturing (ZAP).

New Building for Radically User-Oriented Value Creation

Now, the three centers will be housed in one building. "The compact four-story design with underground parking can accommodate the space requirements on an optimized footprint and conserves the building ground resource," explains Professor Stephan Birk from Birk Heilmeyer and Frenzel Architects. The main entrance guides conference guests and staff into the representative foyer with an atrium and cafeteria. Adjacent to this bright area is a conference room designed for 360 visitors. To the west of the courtyard, technical rooms and office spaces are arranged over three floors with galleries. The technical rooms and laboratories are used for researching and demonstrating production processes. An overhead crane is provided for bringing in and moving machines and robots.

On the second floor are additional laboratories of the research centers. Two technical control centers form the upper end. Around the courtyard and on the north and south sides are the workstations of the scientific staff. Each of the three research centers is assigned a part of the upper floor.

The new building is the second construction phase of the Fraunhofer IPA on the Birkhof site, both following the urban development master plan. In 2018, Birk Heilmeyer and Frenzel Architects won the competition for the new Building Section V "Personalized Production". Planning began in 2019, and the construction start took place on schedule in late summer 2021.