Head of Department
Karl Brian Nielsen


FIELDS OF ACTIVITY

The teaching and research of the Department are organised on the basis of a problemcentered and interdisciplinary concept. The theme is production in a broad sense, covering the interaction between technology, production, organisation, and economy in connection with industrial plants, business, and trade at a regional, national and international level. In research as well as in teaching within these areas aspects of management, process technology, control, production management and business economics are incorporated.

TEACHING

The teaching activities of the Department are related to BSc programmes in production technology, production management and export technology, and MSc programmes in industrial management, manufacturing technology, and international technology management.
From the 6th semester the students each year work at a project in cooperation with a company or at a problem originating from industry.

RESEARCH

The research focus at the Department is within the following areas:
* Interaction between development and production.
* Interaction between the technical and organisational development and international competitiveness.
* Company adapted management of production development and production together with design of production control systems.
* Solutions to actual and complicated technological problems.
* Technical and organisational networks among companies.
* Analysis of exports possibilities and development of an export organisation.
* Technological and strategic management areas.
The Department has a 3,000 m2 research laboratory with modern production, control and measuring equipment within the areas; cutting, welding, computer integrated manufacturing, metal forming, production of plastics, production technology for non-metalic materials, measuring technique, automatin and production control.

National Centre of Excellence - Center for Industrial Production
The Center for Industrial Production (CIP) was established in 1999 as a Danish National Competence Center with the purpose of supporting research in industrial production. The mission of the Center is to develop competencies with the aim to be able to develop innovative and holistic solutions to future industrial needs. The main focus of the Center is on the development of integrated theories and methods, with special focus on the interplay between product development, manufacturing and distribution networks in a global context. The Center's goal is to achieve international recognition as a world class research institution. In addition to this, the Center aims at strengthening the Danish engineering education, and to provide management education programs within related fields. The specific research emphasis of the Center is on management and the organization of industrial production. More specific emphasis is put on the relation between people, technology, systems and business development.
The Center for Industrial Production consists of a core facility located at the Aalborg University Campus, as well as research networks that connect the core facility with other relevant national and international research environments, in order to expand its research base and its areas of application. Pt. CIP operates 17 network projects involving more than 20 different national and international research institutions. The core facility includes more than 30 PhD students and research staff, 10 faculty, and 3 administrative staff.
CIP is hosted by the Department of Production at Aalborg University, but is managed and organized as an autonomous research facility. The center is organized with an external Board of Directors appointed by the Danish Ministry of Research and a management team - Professor John Johansen, Center Manager, and Professor Jens Ove Riis, Vice-Manager - responsible for the daily managing and functioning of the Center. A more comprehensive description of the center can be seen at www.cip.aau.dk.