Press manufacturer extends university partnership

• Development and research in document authentication and classification
• Close cooperation between research and industry
• Ostwestfalen-Lippe as an important development location for Koenig & Bauer

Koenig & Bauer has set up a five-year endowed chair at the Ostwestfalen-Lippe University of Applied Sciences. After regular appointment proceedings, Dr. Helene Dörksen has been appointed to the chair with effect from 1st August 2019. The goal of the endowed chair is to promote development and research in the field of document authentication and classification.

The chair and its laboratory are to be hosted by the ‘Mathematics and Authentication’ section within the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. This interdisciplinary field embracing mathematics, algorithmics, biophotonics and chemical analysis is a highly future-oriented field of research. It places a focus on the analysis of documents of all types, for example security documents and banknotes, or similarly critical packaging – especially in the pharmaceutical industry –, as well as on the analysis of other physical objects which require authentication at given points along the value chain. Studies of the implementation technologies, such as embedded and mobile systems, and their usability are also supported.

Happy faces after presentation of the endowed chair at Ostwestfalen-Lippe University of Applied Sciences (l-r): Claus Bolza-Schünemann, president and CEO of Koenig & Bauer, Prof. Volker Lohweg, institute director and vice-dean of the department, Prof. Helene Dörksen, owner of the new professorship, Dr. Johannes Schaede, Chief Technology Officer at Koenig & Bauer’s security printing subsidiary NotaSys and Dr. Andreas Pleßke, board member of Koenig & Bauer

Claus Bolza-Schünemann, president and CEO of Koenig & Bauer, and board member Dr. Andreas Pleßke congratulated the newly appointed professor in person during her visit to the group headquarters in Würzburg. “The endowed chair was a logical next step, and appropriate recognition for the academic achievements of our university partner,” said Claus Bolza-Schünemann. “For several years now, we have been developing key image analysis technologies for the group in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe region, together with specialists from the university. Koenig & Bauer has been a motor of the traditional German printing industry for over 200 years, driving progress in the branch with a long list of innovative developments, also in the field of optical inspection.”

Dr. Andreas Pleßke emphasised: “The close cooperation between research and industry at the Institute of Industrial IT (inIT) of the Ostwestfalen-Lippe University of Applied Sciences is already bearing fruit. We see it as one of our strategic strengths that we are able to combine our process know-how with industrial IT solutions in order to develop new approaches and fields of business. And I am especially pleased about the appointment of Prof. Dörksen – after all, the proportion of female pacemakers in our industry is still rather small.”

Prof. Volker Lohweg, institute director and vice-dean of the department, added: “Prof. Helene Dörksen is a scientist with a broad understanding in different natural science and engineering disciplines. She has already contributed considerable experience in the field of authentication, pattern recognition and imaging processes as head of a research group looking into smart banknotes, not to mention her valuable know-how from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory and the German synchrotron in Hamburg.”

Prof. Helene Dörksen is looking forward to her new tasks: “Today’s authentication tasks can only be tackled with complex methods. We must adopt the perspectives of different disciplines in order to determine effective solutions. The results, however, must always measure up to the realities of practical application.”

The Koenig & Bauer location in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe region is its centre for image processing technology. The facility has been developing and supporting corresponding systems for the whole Koenig & Bauer group since 2001. While early systems were essentially geared to the needs of banknote production, the developments today cater equally for wide-ranging commercial applications in packaging and metal decoration.

Numerous research projects at inIT have developed – and continue to develop – new security technologies, covering both the security features themselves and their verification. In 2017, this research spawned a start-up at the CENTRUM INDUSTRIAL IT, one of the largest science-to-business centres for smart automation, in Lemgo. coverno GmbH is already establishing itself on the market.