Born in Guben (Germany) in 1936, em.o.Univ.-Prof. Dr. Lutz Jürgen Heinrich pursued humanistic studies as well as industrial and mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Berlin. For the latter, the Siemens Foundation presented him with the "Best Graduate of the Year" award. He earned his doctorate degree in political science and economics in 1963 and in 1968, he earned his habilitation/post-doc in business administration with a research focus on business information systems.

He accepted a professorship position in general business administration at the JKU in 1970, focusing on manufacturing economics and business data processing in particular. em.o. Univ.Prof. Lutz Jürgen Heinrich became head of the Institute of Manufacturing Economics and Operational Systems Research in 1971, then later the Institute of Information Systems and Organizational Research, and subsequently the Institute of Information Systems Information Engineering in 2004. In this regard, he was the father of Information Systems at the JKU. He remained loyal to the JKU, despite offers from Dortmund and Bamberg. He retired in 2004 and to mark the occasion, the State of Upper Austria presented with the Upper Austrian State Medal of Honor. In 2011, he was appointed as academic consultant for his monograph "The History of Business Informatics".