Professor Hardt has been a member of the Mechanical Engineering faculty at MIT since 1979, and is a founding member of the Engineering Systems Division at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Professor Hardt served as Director of the MIT Laboratory for Manufacturing from 1985 - 1992 and as Engineering Co-Director for the MIT Leaders for Manufacturing Program from 1993 to 1998.  As Co-Director of LFM he has been a Co-Principle Investigator for the Next Generation Manufacturing Project. This project involved the participation of hundreds of manufacturing professionals, and combined the efforts of over twelve industry associations to develop an industrial view of the future of manufacturing enterprises. He is currently leader of the Innovation in Manufacturing Systems and Technology Programme, part of an experiment in distance teaching and research collaboration between MIT and Singapore.

Professor Hardt’s research programs have been sponsored by industry and government and currently involve the efforts of 6 graduate assistants and several research staff.  Since beginning in 1979, this research has involved over 42 Master of Science and 14 Doctor of Philosophy Students, as well as the efforts of several dozen undergraduates.  His research is or has been supported by the Office of Naval Research, National Science Foundation, the National Bureau of Standards (now NIST), U.S. Department of Energy, Air Force Material Lab., General Motors Corporation, Martin Marrietta Corp, ALCOA, and Cincinnati Inc.