The Institute of Industrial Engineering and Management (WIIN) was founded in 2007 as an in-house institute of htw saar with the aim of developing an ICRM opportunity-risk management system for and together with small and medium-sized enterprises in Saarland, which provides a solid basis for optimizing the opportunity-risk portfolio across all industries.

In 2017, it was decided to realign the institute and give it the short name wi institut. This is also associated with a focus on the future topics of digitalization and automation of the economy (Economy 4.0 or Industry 4.0), electromobility, energy efficiency and the resulting structural change. At the wi institut, the aforementioned topics are not researched in isolation, but as interdisciplinary technical and economic systems and transferred. The spectrum includes interdisciplinary strategy development, design, analysis, simulation, evaluation and optimization of these technical-economic systems.

Another aim of the wi institute is to continuously improve teaching at htw saar. For this reason, the latest research findings are incorporated into practice-oriented teaching and the professors involved are open to new forms of knowledge transfer.