Web page: www.iat.uni-stuttgart.de
Contact point: Sandra Frings

The Institute for Human Factors and Technology Management (“Institut für Arbeitswissenschaft und Technologiemanagement”) IAT of the University of Stuttgart is specialized in the integrated planning, design and optimization of innovative products, processes and structures. Under consideration of human factors, organizational aspects, technological solutions and the environment, the IAT explores and evaluates new concepts of technology management, work organization and work design. New anthropocentric concepts for work organization and work design are explored and tested, and the technical, organizational and social conditions of work processes are analyzed and designed.

Research areas such as strategic planning, organizational development, process design, work systems design, product design and leadership are being holistically addressed at the IAT by interdisciplinary teams. Due to the existing cooperation with the Fraunhofer-Institute for Industrial Engineering (IAO), the basic research undertaken at IAT within the university environment is interrelated with applied research of the IAO and transformed into practicable solutions in a multitude of projects with industrial partners and clients.

The experiences gained are being demonstrated in several test and laboratory sites at the institute including a usability lab. Furthermore, the results from research and practice are permanently transferred back to the IAT for education purposes.

Lead by Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dieter Spath, a staff of 260 - primarily engineers, computer scientists, economists, sociologists and architects - at IAT and the cooperating IAO work inter-disciplinarily in a multitude of R&D projects.

The department “Software Management” and the team “Sales Information Systems”, home department of the research performers in OSCAR proposal, has gained experience and skill concerning all major aspects of designing, implementing and evaluating interactive systems in office, manufacturing and home environments for more than a decade now. With regard to TOSSAD goals, the unit organises the annual conference “Strategic Open Source Symposium”, a industry and academia event where issues of open source dissemination into the business domain are discussed. The unit closely cooperates with the regional business initiative “bwcon”, a business network of more than 4000 individuals and 300 regional IT and media companies. The institute is actively involved in the human computer interaction community; e.g. it has organised the 8th HCI conference in Munich with 800 participants.

The IAT is in charge of the Study Course “Technology Management” (Studiengang Technologiemanagement) (University) at the University of Stuttgart. Also, the IAT offers the subject Technology Management for other majors