Ilmenau’s contributions to Design Science

Abstract

Abstract Ilmenau is a relatively small town in a beautiful landscape, close to the centre of Germany. Since 1894 it has been the home of a Technical College which after World War II and through some permutations became today’s Technische Universität Ilmenau. For 70 years the university has contributed to Design Science. It is interesting to note that the fundamentals were developed in practice, at the Carl Zeiss company in Jena; it was only later that the new ideas were further developed for academic research and teaching in Ilmenau. The origins at Zeiss Jena still account for the main application area at Technische Universität Ilmenau today: Precision Engineering which, in addition to mechanical, has always included electric, electronic, control, software, and even optical components (“mechatronics” before the term was coined). This article – written by three (out of four in total) of the professors who were and are, respectively, in charge over almost 50 out of the 70 years – tells the story of Design Science in Ilmenau: background, beginnings, development, contributions to research, teaching, and transfer to industry. As Ilmenau was situated in the German Democratic Republic (“East Germany”) between 1949 and 1990, the story is not free of political and societal implications, some of them quite surprising.