Fraunhofer-Business Area Cleaning
In our interview series in each newsletter, we introduce you to a member of the Fraunhofer-Business Area Cleaning in more detail. This time Dr. Akexander Blättermann from the Fraunhofer Institute for Physical Measurement Techniques IPM answered our questions. Read more about his career and his personal perspective on the goals, potential and wishes for the Fraunhofer-Business Area Cleaning.
1. How did you join Fraunhofer-Business Area Cleaning?
I have been working as a researcher and project manager on the topic of imaging inspection of contaminations at Fraunhofer IPM for four years. My first contact with this business area was when I joined our team at the Fraunhofer booth at Parts2Clean. Since I have become group leader of the „Optical Surface Analytics” group in July 2022. I am happy to replace my former colleague Albrecht Brandenburg becoming a member of Fraunhofer-Business Area Cleaning.
2. What goal have you set yourself for your work at Fraunhofer-Business Area Cleaning?
My goal is to support the Fraunhofer-Business Area Cleaning and its members by introducing our know-how in the field of imaging fluorescence inspection. In turn, I hope to benefit from the broad knowledge base and expertise of my Fraunhofer colleagues, in order to be able to address customers issues even better in the future.
3. What would you like to pass on to the customers of Fraunhofer-Business Area Cleaning?
The possibility to completely assess the cleanliness of part surfaces with extreme sensitivity – for every single part produced – provides many advantages, compared to a production scheme without such an inspection. This includes increased surface quality, adapted and monitored cleaning processes as well as the possibility to realize very demanding processes with very limited rejection rates.
4. What does the Fraunhofer IPM offer in cleaning technology?
Fraunhofer IPM developes unique systems for cleanliness inspection of part surfaces – for lab use and for in-line integration – from square millimeters to square meters of complete inspection.
5. What makes you a competent partner in cleaning technology?
During the last four years working at Fraunhofer IPM, on the technologically related fields of cleanliness and coating inspection, I could obtain a lot of insight into topics and processes related to cleaning technology. Solely on the topic of part inspection using fluorescence laser-scanners my team and I have been working on more than 10 projects with more than 20 inspection systems developed and built. Some of them run 24-7 in production lines in the US, others are used in QA labs in order to assess the most critical components and batches