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-> Join our team! We are looking for motivated Ph.D. & M.S. researchers in Smart Mfg, AI/ML, Federated Learning, & Blockchain etc. to join us!
Thorsten 'Thor' Wuest, Ph.D.
Thorsten 'Thor' Wuest, Ph.D.
Professor
Director Center for Industry Solutions
Director Industrial Engineering
The University of South Carolina
Molinaroli College of Engineering and Computing
Department of Mechanical Engineering
office: McNAIR, Suite 120A
lab: McNAIR
Columbia, SC, USA
email: twuest [at] sc.edu
news
news
[09/07/2026] Great news! Our team got selected for the inaugural cohort of UIPD I-PhD Scholars Program. Together with our Industry partner IMCS we will advance life science manufacturing using AI and Industrial Engineering methods.
[09/07/2026] New paper published on 'Generative Adversarial Networks-Based AI Framework for Adaptive Job Shop Scheduling in Industry 5.0' in Computers. Led by Prince Khan with Sayantee Roy, Imene Bareche, Khizar Abbas & Thorsten Wuest based on a data set from our CPlab platform.
[09/04/2026] The official enrollment at the start of year two of the new USC Industrial Engineering program clocks in at 111 students, by far exceeding expectations!
[09/04/2026] Inaugural meeting of SC Defense.
[09/02/2026] Great visit by Tony Moore and his SCMEP team to USC Future Factories and the Center for Industry Solutions. Excited to start joint activities to benefit the SC manufacturing industry!
[08/31/2026] New release on summer project at USC with JuHyeong Ryu and Nishat Alam from WVU.
[08/28/2026] Organized and presented at the '20 years of Smart Factory' special session at the IFAC WC in Busan, South Korea.
[07/29/2026] Welcomed Craig Floyd from M.B. Kahn to the lab.
[07/06/2026] New paper "Vision–language model-enabled cyberphysical link: emerging possibilities for production and operations management" published in IJPR.
[06/29/2026] New feature highlights our work in industry 4.0 in the Greenville Business Magazine.
[06/14-19/2026] The whole team attended NAMRC and presented five papers to the community. Great networking and team building all around.
[06/02/2026] It has become a yearly tradition to meet with Jim Davis as UCLA to discuss the state of Smart Manufacturing (and the world) that I am looking forward to every time. This year we will also meet twice to include our CESMII friends as well.
[06/02/2026] Exciting update from our collaboration with our Finnish friends - our paper on 'Vision–Language Model-enabled Cyberphysical Link: Emerging Possibilities for Production and Operations Management' by Khajavi, Siavash; Jaribion, Alireza; Liu, Zixuan; Wuest, Thorsten; Agrawal, Tarun; Tiitola, Vesa; Holmström, Jan has been accepted by the International Journal of Production Research.
[05/27/2026] New podcast titled 'You Don't Need New Machines - You Need This Engineer' by The Allied Advisors Podcast featuring Justin Goethe is live. We discuss the new USC Industrial Engineering program, the exciting opportunity this presents for the great State of South Carolina, and the trajectory of its Flagship University.
[05/18/2026] New paper accepted, titled "Operationalising Agile Manufacturing in the Digital Transformation Era: Towards a Process-Oriented, Empirically Grounded Roadmap" in the International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management with Medini, K., De Benedittis, J., Wuest, T., & Juganaru, M.
[05/08/2026] Austin featured on the front page of USC today covering his interview of the Systems Engineering class taught by Dr. Burkhard Huhnke (CTO, Scout Motors).
[for older 'news', see news time machine]
> become part of our team <
> become part of our team <
You are a talented, motivated, and dedicated future Ph.D. student, M.S. student, or Post-Doc and identify yourself with our core research area of Smart Manufacturing? You want to work in a fast paced environment and are interested in being a part of a diverse team engaged in a variety of exciting research projects?
Please fill out this application form introducing yourself, your background, and your research interest and include your CV, references, and publications. Make sure to check our teams' recent publications and projects, and ideally provide first ideas and research questions you plan to explore in greater detail.
short bio
short bio
Dr. Thorsten Wuest is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Director of the Center for Industry Solutions, and Director of Industrial Engineering at the Molinaroli College of Engineering and Computing at the University of South Carolina. His research focusses on Smart and Advanced Manufacturing, AI/ML in manufacturing (incl. Agentic AI, Hybrid Analytics, & Federated Learning), Industry 4.0, Digital Supply Networks, Blockchain, and Product Service Systems. Dr. Wuest's research is funded by a variety of federal agencies (incl. NSF, NIST, DoD, EPA, NIH, CESMII/DoE), international agencies (incl. Thomas Jefferson Fund, DFG, EC, BMBF, etc.), and industry. He is a globally recognized Smart Manufacturing thought leader and one of SME's 20 most influential professors in smart manufacturing. In addition to publishing his work in the premier academic outlets, he was featured by Forbes, Futurism, IndustryWeek, World Economic Forum, CBC Radio, and World Manufacturing Forum, etc. Active in many professional societies, he is a member of IFIP WG 5.1 & 5.7, IFAC TC 5.3, SME, and IISE. Dr. Wuest gave invited talks in more than 11 countries, served on Ph.D. committees in 8 countries, published three award-winning books and over 190 peer-reviewed articles in international archival journals and conferences gathering over 17,500 citations and a h-factor of 51. He served as Vice-Chair Americas for the IFIP WG 5.7, is an Associate Editor for the Robotics & Computer-Integrated Manufacturing (RCIM), ASTM Journal Smart and Sustainable Manufacturing Systems (SSMS), and the International Journal of Manufacturing Research (IJMR), and a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of Manufacturing Systems (JMSY) and Production & Manufacturing Research (PMR) and several more. He serves on the Advisory Board for multiple companies and startups, including the Knudsen Institute, Maven Machines, Veepio, and Sustainment. As a dedicated teacher, he taught over ~1,950 undergraduate and graduate students as the instructor of record at WVU and USC to-date.
Dr. Wuest was awarded his Ph.D. in Production Engineering with Summa Cum Laude by the University of Bremen, a Master's in Industrial Engineering and Management and graduated top of the class in the International Business Master's program at the AUT University, New Zealand. He previosuly worked as a research scientist for BIBA - Bremer Institut für Produktion und Logistik GmbH, the Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Southern California (USC), and as a tenured Associate Professor and J. Wayne and Kathy Richards Faculty Fellow in Engineering at the Industrial and Management Systems Engineering department, West Virginia University. Furthermore, he worked for Arthur D. Little (Switzerland), ThyssenKrupp Technologies, and the German Federal Armed Forces.
education
education
Ph.D. (Dr.-Ing.) in Production Engineering, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany.
Master of Professional Business Studies (MPBS), AUT University - Business School, Auckland, New Zealand.
Master of Science (Dipl.-Wi.-Ing.) in Industrial Engineering and Management, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany.
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