Author: Dirk Schaefer

Professor Schaefer has more than twenty years experience in computer-aided design, engineering and manufacturing, both in industry and academia. He has been an active member of the design communities in the US, the UK and Germany. Over the past ten years, Prof. Schaefer has conducted research on product modeling, variant design, product life-cycle management, design-with-manufacture integration, standardized product data exchange and digital and virtual engineering. His current research focus concerns the highly topical areas of cloud computing-based design and manufacture (CBDM), a game-changing strategy and technology push to enable next generation computer-aided product creation in globally distributed and collaborative settings.