The evolution of the Lindoe Center for Applied Mathematics (LCAM) through the Department of Information Technology (DIT) to The Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute for Production Technology, began in 1985 with a suggestion by 12 industrial companies, situated in the Funen region, to establish a master's programme in Computer Systems Engineering. Responding to this suggestion, the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) and the former Odense University College of Engineering, now the Faculty of Engineering at SDU, joined forces, and the first students were admitted in 1986. The concept combined SDU's expertise in mathematics, physics and computer science with IOT's expertise in electronics and computer engineering.
About the same time, the applied mathematics group within the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science (IMADA) began the project AMROSE (Autonomous Multiple Robot Operation in Structured Environments), which proved to be a very fruitful collaboration with Odense Steel Shipyard (OSS) on a robot control system capable of automatically programming robots to economically weld short runs of complex ship structures. This project was based on exploiting and extending the group's previous research on analytical mechanics and molecular dynamics.
As the project proceeded, more and more students were attracted to it; hardware such as vision systems and robots started to appear, and soon there was no room for the group at the premises of IMADA. OSS solved this problem by providing space in the nearby International Science Park of Odense and establishing the Lindoe Center for Applied Mathematics. Lindoe is the name of the peninsula where the shipyard is situated. The success of the project inspired SDU to encapsulate both in the new Department of Information Technology (DIT), which also acquired the digital image processing group from the Physics Department.
Soon after DIT was established, SDU started negotiations with the The A.P. Møller and Chastine Mc-Kinney Møller Foundation to donate resources (DKK 75,000,000) to house the whole department in a single building and to extend its role to include all facets of production technology. The result is The Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute for Production Technology, which officially started on July 1, 1997. In May 1999, the institute moved into The Maersk Building, which is to be found in a parkland setting at the end of Campusvej and is designed by the distinguished Danish architect, Henning Larsens Tegnestue.
In 2006, the institute amalgamated with the then "Ingeniørhøjskolen Odense Teknikum," sharing premises at Niels Bohrs Allé 1 and Campusvej 55 in Odense.
In 2015, the facilities at Niels Bohrs Allé were moved into the new TEK Building located on Campusvej and close to the Maersk Building mentioned above.