Ehrhardt + Partner has worked successfully with renowned
universities in Germany for many years. Since E+P set up an
endowed chair at the University of Coblenz in 2001 for the sub-
ject of eLogistics, Prof. Dr. Helmut Bollenbacher has become a
part of the landscape as a scientific consultant for the compa-
ny. In the last 25 years of his teaching career, he has mentored
countless students on the topics of embedded systems, digital
signal processing and digital image processing, including many
current E+P employees. His competences regularly flow into
the development of new technologies. The results of the coop-
eration are in practical use at many companies today.
Prof. Bollenbacher, as a full-blooded scientist, what about
the cooperation with E+P appeals to you?
That is quite simple: I see our partnership as representative of
how concrete solutions for practical use can be developed and
proven with scientific support. E+P is one of the front-run-
ners in this field. I am repeatedly particularly impressed by
the speed with which the company reacts to new customer re-
quirements; from both existing customers and requests which
result in new developments. The necessary resources are made
available within a very short time. Throughout the course of
the cooperation, it quickly became clear that our two subject
areas complement each other. In order to build a bridge be-
tween industry and universities, we created the ITL Institute
for Technical Solutions in Logistics. I have since accompanied
this program as a scientist. Over the years, a large number of
projects have been implemented.
Can you name a few examples?
Our most recent example is LFS.oculus3D. Several student
thesis papers were incorporated into the development of this
highly sophisticated solution. The core algorithms were then
created with my help. In practice, E+P has been testing the rec-
ognition and detection technology for quite some time to put
it through its paces. This is also a distinguishing characteristic
of the company in my opinion. The quick reaction to customer
requests never has negative impacts on operational safety. New
solutions are always tested in-house before they go out to the
customer. A further research field is the topic of RFID which is
continuously gaining in significance. The focus is, for instance,
on how RFID transponders can be safely and effectively in-
tegrated into a logistics process. Typical applications are, for
instance, container management or simultaneous detection of
RFID transponders. The ITL is tasked with developing robust
and cost-efficient options for daily practice.
What do you do to get your students excited about technical
solutions?
It’s not that difficult. When students become aware that en-
gineers in electrical engineering and computer sciences find
interesting and future-proof work in the field of logistics, this
breaks the ice very quickly. The student workshops E+P hold
regularly also make a contribution. Students gain an overview
of the potential topics for their thesis papers based on concrete
examples from former students. Per semester, around seven to
eight new research papers result from the cooperation between
universities and E+P. That’s a lot in comparison to other com-
panies.
More to the point: In your opinion, which topics will domi-
nate the future?
Industry 4.0, the Internet of Things and Big Data. Concretely,
that means: intelligent networking of all participating objects in
production and distribution and processing the accrued data.
Further useful facts can be become clear, particularly when
analyzing this data. In logistics this means, for instance: Goods
that are in production signalize their status and autonomously
find their path through the production line. The challenge lies
in creating communication options between the goods and the
production line. If we keep going with this scenario, commu-
nication between the goods themselves will also be possible in
the future. The research work is currently running at full ca-
pacity. E+P is a partner for these and similar future-oriented
projects.
The think tank unites
science and practice.
10 11 LFS.vision