Prof. dr inż. Rolfa Steinhilpera

Rolf Steinhilper graduated as a mechanical engineer specializing in Factory Management and Automotive Technology at the University of Stuttgart, Germany in 1978. He then worked as a Fraunhofer R&D Manager on innovation projects dealing with Manufacturing, Remanufacturing, Recycling and EcoDesign for major industrial clients in Europe, USA and Canada, Japan, China and Taiwan in the past 40 years. In 1990, Rolf belonged also to the founding members of the APRA European Division. In 2001 he was appointed full professor for Manufacturing and Remanufacturing Technology at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. Since 2006 he was also responsible for the Fraunhofer Project Group “Process innovation” there, where he started and orchestrated the European Remanufacturing Technology Center from 2001 until 2018, when he retired from his academic positions at the age of 66 years. His team consisted of more than 45 specialized scientists and engineers who gave significant innovation support to the remanufacturing industry worldwide. He has written 15 books among them a Bestseller entitled “Remanufacturing”, which has been published in seven World languages, also Japanese, Chinese, Korean. In 2016, Rolf Steinhilper won the “Remanufacturer of the year” award as the first academician among the so far industry management award winners.