A successful IFAC MIM 2019

The three words ‘Interdisciplinary, international and intensive’ sum up the experience at the three-day academic conference “Manufacturing Modelling, Management and Control” (MIM) hosted by the HWR Berlin for the first time. Academics from around the world gathered at the HWR Lichtenberg Campus to discuss current developments in the modelling, management and control of production and manufacturing systems. The build-up to the event saw the submission of 800 high-quality papers; the results of the conference will be recorded in eleven special editions of leading international journals.

In addition to a full conference programme – 120 technical sessions, 12 plenary and keynote addresses, 3 industrial workshops – the MIM was visited by partners such as Rolls Royce, Stadler, the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology, Siemens and BMW. Delegates could both relax, network and continue their discussions on a boat tour and – the undisputed high point of the event, a gala dinner for attendees.

The celebratory high point of the conference, held at the Berlin Congress Center, bcc, on the Alexanderplatz in the heart of Berlin saw prizes awarded for the best academic papers. A total of 28 contributions were commended in the categories “Commended Paper Award”, “Best Industrial Paper Award”, “Young Author Award” and “Best Paper Awards”. The prize winners included Hongyan Dai, Jiawei Tao, Hai Jiang and Weiwei Chen for their paper “O2O On-Demand Delivery Optimization with Mixed Driver Forces”. In addition to the high technical level of the discussion which the paper presented, the judges were delighted that the authors covered all three aspects of the MIM 2019: digitalization, sustainability and resilience. This resulted in the award to the team of the “Best Paper Award”.

Prof. Susanne Meyer, Vice President of the HWR Berlin and the deputy moderator of the MIM 2019 was pleased with the course of the conference: “We are very proud to have been chosen to host this prestigious international conference. Internationality and application-oriented research are two of the central pillars of the HWR’s existence and we are glad to have shared this with conference delegates.”

Following three years of preparation, Prof Dimitry Ivanov looked back on a successful conference: “The specialist level of the conference was very high indeed. We were able to bring together the top international and interdisciplinary experts in in supply chain and operations management from over 51 countries. I am very grateful to the HWR Berlin for the absolute trust they placed in myself and my team and their full support and co-operation which was vital to the realization of this conference. I should also like to thank all those who helped us realize such an excellent gathering. Over 100 members of the International Programme Committee (IPC) were actively involved in the organization, led by the IPC chair, Prof. Alexandre Dolgui (France). I am sure that this gathering has given great impetus for further work in the field of the digitalization of industrial production. As the chairperson of the General Conference of the IFAC MIM 2019, I cannot conceive of any better results for the specialist and organizational arrangements of the conference.”

Selected feedback from the IFAC MIM 2019 held at the HWR Berlin:

“Thank you very much for everything and the fantastic hospitality. I think the conference was a great success! I really enjoyed the sessions and all the other events.”
Prof. Srinivas (Sri) Talluri, Michigan State University, USA

“Congratulations and thanks for the excellent organization of the conference. The social activities were simply great from the welcome reception to the very final dinner”.
Prof. Fabio Sgarbossa, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway

“It was a wonderful and an excellent organization of the conference. Simply amazing. In true sense it was a grand success.”
Prof. Manoj Tiwari, IIT Kharagpur, India

“I highly enjoyed the conference. It was a blast for me!”
Mr. Nicolas Jathe, BIBA, University of Bremen, Germany

“Thank you very much for the invitation to this high ranking conference! Everything was first class. My congratulations.”
Mr. Dmitri Muravev, PhD Student, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China

For further information about MIM 2019, see our
in der press release (german)
on the website ot the MIM 2019