Quality protection of capital goods based on unique and component inherent characteristics realized with a batch-fingerprint

资本货物，特别是其零部件在整个供应链和价值链上的明确可追溯性，对制造商和客户至关重要。缺乏可追溯性和由此导致的市场透明度不足，导致消费者对产品质量失去信心，这也是以证明产品来源的能力为基础的。此外，制造商还受到不合理的责任索赔风险的威胁，这些索赔涉及非原始设备制造商造成的部件故障。目前，存在许多实现或至少应用标志进行识别的标记技术，但由于它们的特点，它们是可以复制的。该研究项目的重点是基于独特和部件固有特征的识别技术的研究。通过这些特征的随机分布，制造商和消费者可以防止假冒产品。目标是调查单一材料批次中材料特征的唯一分布。因此，采用了光学发射光谱(OES)和能量色散X射线能谱(EDX)两种光谱分析方法。其目的是提供一种独特的批次指纹，它具有整个供应链和价值链的特征，并保证可追溯性，特别是资本品组件。因此，可以识别磨损严重的部件。针对制造商的不合理的责任索赔可以用批次指纹来反驳。因此，明确的可追溯性得到了保证，通过这样做，资本货物的质量得到了保护。

The unambiguous traceability of capital goods and in particular of its components all along the supply and value chain is of central importance for the manufacturers and customers. The lack of traceability and the insufficient market transparency caused thereby have the effect that customers lose their confidence in product quality which also bases on the ability of proving the product origin. Additionally, manufacturers are threatened by the risk of unjustified liability claims referring to component failures which are not caused by the original equipment manufacturers. Currently, a lot of marking technologies implementing or at least applying signs for identification exists but due to their characteristics they can be copied. The research project focuses on the investigation of identification technologies based on unique and component inherent characteristics. By the stochastic distribution of these characteristics manufacturers and customers are protected against counterfeit products.The objective is the investigation of a unique distribution of material characteristics in single material batches. Therefore, the two spectrometric analysis optical emission spectrometry (OES) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) is used. The aim is to provide a unique batch-fingerprint which is characteristic for the entire supply and value chain and guaranties the traceability especially for capital goods components. Thereby, it is possible to identity heavily worn components. Unjustified liability claims against the manufacturer can be disproved with the batch-fingerprint. As the result, the unambiguous traceability is guaranteed and by doing so the quality of the capital good is protected.