Operationalization of counterfeiting strategies through the use of continuous track-and-trace technologies

• Applicant: Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard Abele
• Subject Area: Production Systems, Operations Management, Quality Management and Factory Planning
• Term: from 2015 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 269386350

The growing complexity of global supply-chain networks increases the producing companies need to invest more efforts into protecting their know-how against undesired retransmission and illegal use. During the research project a risk typology for counterfeit of engineering products was successfully deduced and the foundation for the implementation of an effective and sustainable know-how protection strategy established. The developed approach enables decision makers to prioritize selected protection measure groups for individual products. However, for an efficient practical implementation an in depth study of the countermeasures effectiveness and requirements is needed. Extending the results of the previous project, the findings will be transferred to the implementation of track-and-trace technologies in cooperation with the industry partner. On the one hand, these technologies were already assigned a high potential in the framework of the developed protection strategies. On the other hand, traceability technologies, such as data-matrix-codes and RFID-chips, are increasingly accepted and implemented due to their additional benefits regarding process optimization. They, furthermore, play a significant role in research towards the fourth industrial revolution. A growing demand is hence anticipated and increases the necessity to investigate these technologies also with respect to anti-counterfeit. The aim of the project, therefore, is to research the still unknown know-how protection benefits of such technologies and to enable company decision makers to make informed technical and economical countermeasure choices. The core of the project is the structured methodical investigation of the effectiveness and limitations of use of track-and-trace technologies for anti-counterfeit. A practical selection methodology and implementation recommendations are targeted as the final outcome. In order to achieve this overall goal, first application scenarios are substantiated and technological and organizational requirement profiles are defined. Subsequently, available technologies are systematized and assessed with the help of an adapted reference-effect-model.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants (Transfer Project)
• Application Partner: Festo AG & Co. KG