Steven Eppinger

Steven D. Eppinger is the General Motors Leaders for Global Operations Professor, a Professor of Management Science and Engineering Systems, and the Co-Director of the System Design and Management Program at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Eppinger served as deputy dean of MIT Sloan from 2004 to 2009; as faculty co-director of the Leaders for Global Operations (formerly MIT Leaders for Manufacturing) and the System Design and Management programs from 2001 to 2003; and as co-director of the Center for Innovation in Product Development from 1999 to 2001. Prior to joining the MIT faculty in 1988, he worked as a machinist, manufacturing engineer, product designer, and consultant in both prototype and production operations.

His research efforts are applied to improving product design and development practices. Conducted within MIT’s Center for Innovation in Product Development, his work focuses on organizing complex design processes in order to accelerate industrial practices, and has been applied primarily in the automotive, electronics, aerospace, and equipment industries. At MIT Sloan, Eppinger has created an interdisciplinary product development course in which graduate students from engineering, management, and industrial design programs collaborate to develop new products. He also teaches MIT’s executive programs in the area of product development.

In 1993, he received both MIT’s Graduate Student Council Teaching Award and the MIT Sloan Award for Innovation and Excellence in Management Education. Eppinger has co-authored a widely used textbook entitled, Product Design and Development, Fifth Edition (McGraw-Hill, 2008). The author of more than 40 articles in refereed academic journals and conferences, he received the ASME Best Paper Award in Design Theory and Methodology in 1995 and again in 2001. Eppinger lectures regularly for international corporations and in executive education programs, and has consulted for or conducted research with more than 50 firms. He serves on the Research Advisory Council of the Design Management Institute and on the Advisory Board of Directors of the Society of Concurrent Product Development.

Eppinger holds SB, SM, and ScD degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT.