Armando Brandolese has greatly contributed to the birth and development of Management Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano, both as a professor and researcher and through his intense institutional, organisational and consulting activity. A graduate in Mechanical Engineering from the Politecnico di Milano (1965), he was appointed Associate Professor in 1980 and full Professor of “Industrial Mechanical Plants” (SSD ING-IND/17) from 1983 to 2011.
Between 1982 and 1984 he was among the founders of the Degree Programme in Management Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano, one of the first of its kind in Italy, thereby helping to shape a discipline that combines engineering, economics and management. From 2001 to 2010 he served as Dean of the Faculty of Systems Engineering and as Coordinator of the University’s Faculty Deans, and from 1998 to 2010 he was a member of the Academic Senate of the Politecnico di Milano. For many years he was Vice-President (until 2011) and a senior lecturer of the MIP Consortium – Business School of the Politecnico di Milano (currently known as POLIMI Graduate School of Management), teaching in MBA and Executive programmes on management, industrial plant engineering, quality and logistics. From 1976 to 1992 he coordinated the “Technology Management” area at the SDA – School of Management of Bocconi University.
His research and consulting activity has focused on the design, evaluation and rationalisation of industrial plants, production processes and manufacturing systems, addressed from strategic (make-or-buy, sizing and allocation of production capacity, plant location and relocation), technological (layout, material handling and flexible manufacturing systems) and organisational-managerial perspectives (production planning, logistics, maintenance management, industrial accounting, information systems, time-to-market reduction and Total Quality Management). He is the author of numerous articles published in national and international journals on the design and management of industrial plants and manufacturing production systems.
Alongside his academic work, he has carried out extensive professional activity: since 1989 he has acted as a court-appointed or party technical expert on more than twenty occasions, both for the Court of Milan and in major arbitrations between industrial and service companies, many of them held at the Milan Chamber of Arbitration. He also held prominent management roles, serving as Sole Director of ATAC S.p.A., the public transport company of the Municipality of Rome (2015–2016), and as Special Administrator, appointed by the Prefect of Milan, of the Giuseppe Maltauro construction company for the works relating to the 2015 Universal Exposition (2014–2016).
By decree of the President of the Republic in 2016, he was awarded the honour of Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic.
