The award will be presented to the long-standing member of the Board of Directors of Aachen’s Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL) on 8th September, 2017, in Aachen’s Town Hall.

For 31 years, Professor Dr.-Ing. Dr. Ing. E. h. Manfred Weck was Director of the Laboratory for Machine Tools and Production Engineering (WZL) at the RWTH Aachen University and, during those three decades, made major contributions to the development of machine tools as the heart of industrial production. “He researched machine tools down to the last detail of their operating mechanisms,” says RWTH Rector Professor Ernst Schmachtenberg. On Friday, 8th September, 2017, in recognition of his life’s work, Manfred Weck will receive the Aachen Engineering Award, presented jointly by the RWTH and the City of Aachen, at a ceremony in the Coronation Hall of Aachen’s historic Town Hall. “Aachen’s engineers have an excellent reputation all over the world, and Manfred Weck is one of Aachen’s truly eminent engineers. He is an outstanding role model for all future engineers, who will surely continue to spread Aachen’s excellent reputation for engineering throughout the world,” says Aachen’s Lord Mayor, Marcel Philipp.

Aachen Engineering Award
The Aachen Engineering Award – kindly supported by the Association of German Engineers (VDI) and its president, Professor Udo Ungeheuer, as donors of the prize – honours individuals who have made a significant contribution to the positive perception and further development of engineering through their life’s work – personalities in engineering who are an inspiration to the future generation, like the previous recipients Berthold Leibinger, partner at Trumpf GmbH + Co. KG, Franz Pischinger, founder of the Aachen-based company FEV GmbH, as well as science astronaut Thomas Reiter.

Biography:
The life of Manfred Weck, born 20th November 1937 in Solingen, has spanned the development of mechanical engineering from a time of exhausting manual operation to today’s era of all-encompassing digitalisation. In 1973, after working for a while in industry, he returned to the WZL in Aachen, where he became one of Herwart Opitz’s successors as the director of the institute. In 2004, he retired, although he still continues to turn up at the WZL once a week – in the “Manfred-Weck-Haus”, as his colleagues have fondly christened the building, which was opened in 2007.