Tullio Tolio Editor & Author

CIRP is the world leading organization in production engineering research and is at the forefront of design, optimization, control and management of processes, machines and systems. The Academy has restricted membership based on demonstrated excellence in research and has some 550 academic and industrial members from 40 industrialized countries.

Sami Chatti is a professor in the mechanical engineering department of the National Engineering School of Monastir (ENIM), University of Monastir, Tunisia. He is the main coordinator of the flexible modular master programme in technology (MasTech), developed within a European project under his leadership for six universities in the three countries Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.

Prof. Chatti obtained his degree in mechanical engineering with main focus on manufacturing engineering at the TU Dortmund University, Germany, as well as his doctoral degree in forming technology with a dissertation about optimisation of the manufacturing accuracy in profile bending. With a habilitation thesis entitled “production of profiles for lightweight structures” he obtained his post-doctoral degree at the University of Franche-Comté, Besançon, France, in cooperation with TU Dortmund University.

He worked until December 2016 as senior researcher, chief engineer education (director of studies) and member of the direction group of the Institute of Forming Technology and Lightweight Construction (IUL) of the TU Dortmund University.

Prof. Chatti is since 2007 guest professor at the Department of Production Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden, and was the main coordinator of the mini symposium “light weight design and energy efficiency in metal forming” of the ESAFORM conferences 2011 to 2015.

He is vice-chairman of the CIRP Terminology Committee and member of the international group who revised the “CIRP dictionary of production engineering”, volume “forming” in the languages German, English, and French.

Sami Chatti is married and has three children. He is member of several associations like CIRP and ATM (Association Tunisienne de Mécanique). He has filed 2 patents and has published 9 book chapters and over 100 papers in scientific journals, magazines, and international refereed conferences.  

Luc Laperrière is a full time professor in the mechanical engineering department of Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières since 1991. He received both his master's and Ph.D. degrees from McMaster University, Canada, in 1990 and 1992, respectively.  He was also appointed Chair of his department from 2010 to 2013 and from 2016 to 2019.

During a sabbatical in 1999 he developed new and original artificial intelliogence software.  This was done in collaboration with a commercial software distributor.  The developed modules are still part of the basic version of this software distributed worldwide.

In 2005 he was leading a multidisciplinary engineering team responsible for the design and implementation of the Distributed Control System (DCS) of a fully operational pulp and paper mill with a complete paper machine in a new 11 000 m² building on campus, representing a total investment of 80M$ Cdn, 10% of which came directly from industry.  This DCS manages over 3000 I/Os and 500 control loops.  Its flexibility is still unique worldwide. 

In 2010 he became the founding Director of a new research laboratory on Natural Fiber Composites (NFCs). With his students he helped develop a full scale pilot plant dedicated to the manufacturing of a vast variety of NFCs. 

He has filed 2 patents, has published over 100 papers in leading scientific journals and international refereed conferences, and has supervised over 40 masters and Ph.D. students.

Gunther Reinhart is full professor for Industrial Management and Assembly Technology and director of the iwb (Institute for Machine Tools and Industrial Management) at Technische Universität München. After studying mechanical engineering with the emphasis on design and development, he was research assistant at iwb from 1982 to 1988 with Prof. Dr. Joachim Milberg. During the last 2 years, he was in charge of the assembly automation department. After receiving his Ph.D. from Technische Universität München, Prof. Reinhart started his industrial career with the BMW Group, initially as head of the handling and welding engineering department and subsequently as director of the body paint shop. In 1993, he returned to university to become professor and director of the iwb.

From March 2002 to February 2007, Prof. Reinhart took a sabbatical from university to become a member of the executive board of IWKA Corporation, a large German supplier of engineering, robotics, and plant equipment with 13,000 employees worldwide. He was in charge of Technology and Market (CTO) focused on the discovery of new global market opportunities, the establishment of an internal auditing system, and the development of the IWKA packaging technology group.

In 2007, Prof. Reinhart returned to university and has served with Prof. Michael F. Zäh as co-director of the Institute for Machine Tools and Industrial Management (iwb) with more than 100 employees and two locations: Garching near Munich and Augsburg. He is also the chairman of the Bavarian Cluster for Mechatronics and Automation e.V. and since January 1, 2009, head of the Fraunhofer IWU research-department for Resource-Efficient Converting Machines (RMV).

Gunther Reinhart is member of multiple scientific societies and associations, e.g., acatech, WGMHI, CIRP, WGP, and WiGeP. He has approximately 300 publications in leading trade journals to his credit and is author or editor of ten books and two series. He has also supervised the research projects and the doctoral theses of some 100 research associates.

Tullio Tolio is Full Professor of “Manufacturing and Production Systems” at Politecnico di Milano. He is the Director of ITIA-CNR (Institute of Industrial Technologies and Automation of the National Research Council of Italy).

He has carried out research activities at the Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity (LMP) of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is Director of the Flagship project “Factories of the future Italy and in his position of Director of ITIA-CNR he has defined the strategy of the Institute on more than 40 EU projects.

He has published more than 150 papers in international journals and international conferences. He has been Associate Editor of the SME Journal of Manufacturing Systems (2008-2014), he is currently member of the Editorial Board of the CIRP Annals, Associate Editor of the International Journal of Manufacturing Science and Technology, Editor in Chief of the CIRP Encyclopedia. He is member of the Scientific Committee of 5 annual or biannual International Conferences and he has been the organizer of four editions of International Conferences.

He is Fellow of the CIRP (the International Academy for Production Engineering), member of the High Level Group HLG on KETs-Key Enabling Technologies of the EU, member of the HLG Manufuture (EU platform) and member of the Partnership Board of the UE-Factories of the Future FoF.

He has been: Head of the Ph.D. program in “Manufacturing and Production Systems” at Politecnico di Milano (TU Milan) (2000-2003), member of the Evaluation Board of Politecnico di Milano (TU Milan) (2002-2005), Delegate of the Rector of Politecnico di Milano on "Quality assurance in education" (2005-2008), Head of the Division "Tecnologie Meccaniche e Produzione (Manufacturing)" of the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Politecnico di Milano (TU Milan) (2001-2003 and 2005-2008), President of the national Cluster Intelligent Factories (2012-2015), member of the Directory Board of AITEM (Italian Association for Manufacturing)(2009-2017). 
Currently he is Director of ITIA-CNR (Institute of Industrial Technologies and Automation of the National Research Council of Italy) (since 2008), President of AITeM (Italian Association for Manufacturing), President of the Scientific-Technical Committee of the Italian Cluster Intelligent Factories (since 2015), member of the Directory Board of AFIL (Cluster intelligent Factories Lombardy).