Advisory Board

Christian studied Materials Handling at the University of Applied Science at Erfurt, graduating with a degree in engineering (2002) and later completed a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree program at the University of Wales, UK (2012). Currently he is enrolled in a Master of Science degree program in Information Technology at the Indiana University Bloomington, USA. From 2003 till 2018 Christian held several leadership roles in Operations, Lean and Supply Chain Management for Grammer, ITW, TRW, Faurecia and Federal Mogul in Europe, Asia and the US. During this time, he was responsible for the setup of two manufacturing plants in Asia as well as more than 15 restructuring projects across the globe. Beside his operational responsibilities Christian was also jointly responsible with the conceptual design and roll out of the Production System for Federal Mogul as well as for TRW. His most challenging project was the setup of a new Just in Time plant in South Korea (2009). “At this time, I was fairly young (29) and put in charge in a culture where it is all about seniority and hierarchical levels. I have done many mistakes, have learned a lot and was successful in the end because of a great team and an inspirational leader”. Christian has a deep technical understanding and a high level of expertise in Production and Supply Chain with modern methods and standards. This expertise he is passing over in form of his lecturing assignments in International Production, Digital Strategies and Lean Management at two technical universities in Germany. Currently, Christian is working for STAEDTLER, a traditional German FMCG manufacturer, where he is responsible for the lean transformation along with the digital agenda for the manufacturing network.

Prof. Ceglarek received his Ph.D. in ME from Univ of Michigan-Ann Arbor in 1994. Prior to joining Warwick, he was Full Professor with tenure in the ISyE at Univ of Wisconsin–Madison, USA. Since 2007 he is Professor & EPSRC Star Research Chair at U-Warwick, UK. Prof. Ceglarek is a CIRP Fellow. He served as Chair of Quality, Statistics & Reliability Section of INFORMS; Program Chair for ASME Design-for-Manufacturing Life Cycle Conferences, Assoc. Editor of IEEE Trans. (TASE), and ASME Trans., J. of Manuf Systems & Engg; and UK rep in the Implementation Support Group of ManuFUTURE EU Technology Platform. He is founder & head of the Digital Lifecycle Management Group at Warwick dedicated to research on Factory-of-the-Future & Hospital-of-the-Future. He has published over 150 papers, received 4 Best Papers Awards with 12 papers in Top-1% of the most cited in engineering journals. His research is funded by EPSRC, EU-FP7, US-NSF, US NIST-ATP, Jaguar LandRover, GE, Hexagon, Motorola, Chrysler, etc. He has 3 patents, his research has resulted in 2 spinouts and his research have been adopted by companies worldwide (e.g InSite™ OnWatch used by GE-HC for remoter diagnostics of all their CT/MRI worldwide; 2mm/stream-of-variation dimensional variation reduction by Chrysler, GM, etc.). He has graduated 21 PhD students many of whom hold tenure track faculty positions in lead research universities (USA, Australia, China) & key industry positions. He has received numerous awards including UK EPSRC 2007 STAR Award (granted to an “exceptional senior faculty, recognised international leader in his/her research field”); US NSF 2003 CAREER Award (NSF's ”most prestigious awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research”); 1999 Outstanding Research Scientist Award from CoE, U-Michigan; 1998 Dell K. Allen Outstanding Young Manuf Engineer of the Year Award from SME.

Prof. Dr. Dimitris Kiritsis is Faculty Member at the Institute of Mechanical Engineering of the School of Engineering of EPFL, Switzerland, where he is leading a research group on ICT for Sustainable Manufacturing. He serves also as Director of the doctoral Program of EPFL on Robotics, Control and Intelligent Systems (EDRS). His research interests are Closed Loop Lifecycle Management, IoT, Semantic Technologies and Data Analytics for Engineering Applications. He served also as Guest Professor at the IMS Center of the University of Cincinnati, and Invited Professor at the University of Technology of Compiègne, the University of Technology of Belfort-Montbéliard and at ParisTech ENSAM Paris. Prof. Kiritsis is actively involved in EU research programs in the area of Factories of the Future and Enabling ICT for Sustainable Manufacturing. He has more than 220 publications. From September 2013 to September 2019 Dimitris was Chair of IFIP WG5.7 – Advanced Production Management Systems. From 2013 to 2017 he was member of the Advisory Group of the European Council on Leadership on Enabling Industrial Technologies – AG LEIT-NMBP. He is also founding fellow member of the International Society for Engineering Asset Management (ISEAM), of various international scientific communities in his area of interests including EFFRA and among the initiators of the IOF (Industrial Ontologies Foundry).

Josef Kriegmair works as Representative Production Turbine Blade / Structure Castings at MTU Aero Engines AG in Centre Production. His focus is on developing and implementing digital process chains, CAM/CAM methods, NC simulation solutions, manufacturing intelligence for turbine blades and structure castings. Prior to this, he was in technical procurement, logistics & plant maintenance, production engineering focus technology development for production and maintenance, repair & overhaul at MTU Aero Engines. He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering focus Production Technology and a degree in Industrial Engineering focus Project Management and Technology Management.

Dr Patrick McLaughlin is a Chartered Engineer and Eur Ing. He is a Fellow of both the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and the Institution of Engineering and Technology, as well as a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He has an MSc in Industrial Engineering and Production Management and a Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA), both from Cranfield. In a career that spans manufacturing engineer, manager and director, he has worked in both multinational and SME businesses. His experiences with a range of manufacturing processes and working for a number of different companies allied to experience in several industries has provided him with a strong background in managing manufacturing operations, including managing growth, downturn, restructuring and relocation of manufacturing facilities. He has worked at director level in manufacturing operations for over twenty years, and has been responsible for several plant-wide operations excellence implementations. He has experience of implementing and managing change programmes to improve manufacturing performance in automotive, capital goods, industrial equipment and consumer durables. This experience includes responsibility for integrating the design and development of new products into a lean operations environment and developing a continuous improvement culture to facilitate performance gains in lean implementations. He is currently working as Course Director of the Operations Excellence MSc at Cranfield University in the UK. His areas of interest are in Developing Manufacturing Strategy for Competitive Advantage, Creating an Innovation Capability in Operations Businesses, and Strategic Development of Smart Manufacturing/Industry 4 to provide Competitive Advantage.