Institute Profile

Fraunhofer IPA - one of the largest institutes of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft - was founded in 1959 and employs about 1200 people. Our research and development activities focus on organizational and technological tasks in production. Processes, components and devices up to complete machines and systems are developed, tested and applied.

Production and automation expertise is continuously developed in 11 research areas.

In 11 business units, we work with small and large companies to turn our research findings into complete solutions, particularly for the automotive, mechanical and plant engineering, electronics and microsystems technology, energy, medical and biotechnology, and process industries.

End-to-End-Operations

Circular Economy and Carbon-Neutral Production

Contamination controlled Manufacturing

Testing and Certification

Coatings and multifunctional Materials

Battery and Hydrogen Systems

Machining Manufacturing, Additive Manufacturing and Lightweight Design

Digital Industries

Health Industry

Automated Intralogistics, Manufacturing and Assembly Systems

Start-up Incubator

Producing the future: sustainable, personalized and intelligent

We focus our research and development on making sustainable and personalized products economically. Two strategic initiatives are important here: "Mass Sustainability aims to combine the lowest possible consumption of resources with the highest possible level of prosperity. With Mass Personalization, we aim to combine the cost advantages of mass production ("economies of scale") with those of flexibility ("economies of scope"). In this way, we hope to produce individualized products in batch size 1 at the cost of mass production.

S-TEC links companies with research and politics

Fraunhofer, the University of Stuttgart and the state government of Baden-Württemberg have jointly initiated S-TEC in order to advance future-oriented research topics and bring them to market quickly. Lighthouse research, industry-on-campus projects and start-ups coexist on the Stuttgart Technology and Innovation Campus. S-TEC connects companies with the broadly diversified research landscape in Stuttgart. The campus is organized into centers according to future-relevant research topics with a high technical innovation character, such as additive production, cybercognitive intelligence, cyber-physical systems, digitized battery cell production and frugal products and production systems.

From digital to biological transformation

After digitizing value creation, what comes next? Fraunhofer IPA is already playing a key role in the development of biointelligent value creation systems. In the future, biological transformation will bring together nature and technology, the biosphere and the technosphere. The principles, processes and organisms that have been optimized over 3.5 billion years of evolution will increasingly flow into industrial value creation. Innovations in biotechnology and information technology will enable them to be cultivated and used in numerous industrial processes. This will make value creation more effective, efficient and sustainable - to the benefit of people and, above all, the environment.