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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