About Us

Business processes are our passion

The FIR looks back on 55 years of experience in developing and applying methods that aim to promote growth and employment. We strive to achieve higher competitiveness as well as job security and better working conditions. In doing so, we combine aspects of profitability and humaneness in a unique way.

Industry-oriented research

Our research areas are service management, information management and production management. Besides our research projects carried out in cooperation with our scientific partners, we maintain close contacts with our partners in industry. This allows us to develop unique methods and tools and to shape the business organisation of the company of the future.

Initiative for excellence

We are part of the initiative for excellence in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). The initiative stands for the cluster strategy carried out at the business location and innovation centre that is North Rhine-Westphalia. The federal state government aims to systematically promote the strengths and expand and consolidate excellences in North Rhine-Westphalia. Within the "NRW-Ziel-2" programme, competitions have been defined as the main instrument for the selection of high quality, innovative funding projects. The aim of the programme is to help implement the best ideas and concepts in this federal state. The competitions are carried out mainly for the 16 NRW clusters, regional cluster potential, and specific interdisciplinary topics.

To read more about the initiative for excellence, please visit the ministry’s website:
http://www.mwebwv.nrw.de/ 

How to get here

By car

• take the A4 towards Aachen/Heerlen/Antwerpen
• take exit AC-Laurensberg
• at exit AC-Laurensberg turn right into Roermonder Straße in the direction of “Aachen-Zentrum”
• after about 2 km you will reach Ponttor 
• turn left into Saarstraße
• at the traffic lights turn right into Veltmanplatz
• turn right onto Hermannstraße

If you have arranged for on-site parking at FIR: 

• coming from Hermannstraße take the first right into Pontdriesch   
• the FIR building is at the end of this street, please register at the reception

If you have not arranged for parking at the FIR building for your visit, you can use the nearby multi-storey car park: 

• from Hermannstraße head straight on into Bergdriesch
• turn left at the traffic lights into Seilgraben
• after 10 metres turn right into the multi-storey car park “Großkölnstraße”
• from here it is a five minute walk to the FIR along Hirschgraben

Further Information: Route planning online

By plane  

Düsseldorf International Airport:

• by train (www.db.de) via Cologne to Aachen main station
• from here take bus number 13A from bus stop H1 to “Ponttor”
• from “Ponttor” it is a 3 minute walk to the FIR

Cologne/Bonn Airport - Konrad Adenauer:

• by train (www.db.de) via Cologne to Aachen main station
• from here take bus number 13A from bus stop H1 to “Ponttor”
• from “Ponttor” it is a 3 minute walk to the FIR

Maastricht/Aachen Airport:

• take bus number 59 to Busstation/NS Maastricht
• take bus numer 50 to mainstation Aachen 
• from here take bus number 13A from bus stop H1 to “Ponttor”
• from “Ponttor” it is a  3 minute walk to the FIR

Liège Airport:

• take bus number 57 to “Liège Guillemins Gare” station
• by train to Aachen main station
• from here take bus number 13A from bus stop H1 to “Ponttor”
• from “Ponttor” it is a  3 minute walk to the FIR

Brussels Airport:

• with the Airport City Express (train) to Brussels South (Midi) or Brussels North
• from here by train via Liège to Aachen main station
• from here take bus number 13A from bus stop H1 to “Ponttor”
• from “Ponttor” it is a  3 minute walk to the FIR

By train

• take the train to Aachen main station 
  http://download.avv.de/Umgebungsplaene/ac_hauptbahnhof.pdf
• here you can take bus number 13B from bus stop 2 to “Ponttor”, from here it is a four minute walk to the FIR
   or
• you can take bus number 13A from bus stop 1 to “Ponttor”, from here it is a three minute walk to the FIR
   or 
• you can take several other  bus lines from bus stop 1 to “Aachen Bushof” bus station
   http://download.avv.de/Umgebungsplaene/ac_bushof.pdf
• here you can take all lines (except line 4) from bus stop 14 to “Driescher Gässchen”, from here it is a one minute walk to the FIR

Further Information: Information desk of "Deutsche Bahn" online.