Karlheinz Bourdon awarded the Georg Menges Prize

The first Georg-Menges Prize winner whose professional roots are at the IKV.

Dr.-Ing. Karlheinz Bourdon, Supervisory Board member at the KraussMaffei Group, receives the Georg-Menges-Preis 2024, which is awarded biennially for outstanding commitment to the collaboration between research and industry.

Georg-Menges Preis 2024 eng — Awarding of the Georg-Menges Prize 2024 at the Eurogress. Dr.-Ing. Herbert Müller, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Karlheinz Bourdon, Dr.-Ing. Christian Hopmann

At the 32nd International Colloquium on Plastics Technology, Dr.-Ing. Karlheinz Bourdon was awarded the Georg Menges Prize 2024. Karlheinz Bourdon receives the prize, which is awarded every two years by the Rubber and Plastics Machinery Association in the German Engineering Federation, PlasticsEurope Deutschland e. V. and the Association for the Promotion of the Institute of Plastics Processing in Industry and the Skilled Crafts at RWTH Aachen University, for his special services in the transfer of research results into industrial practice. Professor Dr.-Ing. Christian Hopmann, Director of IKV and Managing Director of the IKV Sponsors’ Association, presented the award on the first day of the 32nd International Colloquium on Plastics Technology at the Eurogress in Aachen, in keeping with tradition.

Dr.-Ing. Karlheinz Bourdon is the first Georg Menges Prize winner whose professional roots lie at IKV.

As a student assistant at IKV during his mechanical engineering studies in Aachen, he was introduced to the topic of injection moulding machines, which would subsequently determine his entire professional life. A first important stage was his doctorate at IKV in 1989. The following year, he joined KraussMaffei as Head of Systems Engineering, where he set the first technological milestones in the field of automated mold changing and robot removal systems. After moving to Ferromatik Milacron, where he was most recently responsible for the global plastics business as President Global Plastics Machinery, he primarily drove forward the development of all-electric injection moulding machines. In 2008, he returned to KraussMaffei as Managing Director and CEO Injection Moulding Machinery and took over the position of Vice President Technologies of the Injection Moulding Machinery segment in 2012. With the acquisition of the KraussMaffei Group by ChemChina in 2016, he became Senior Vice President Integration and responsible for the integration of ChemChina’s existing mechanical engineering companies into the KraussMaffei Group. Karlheinz Bourdon has since moved to the Supervisory Board of the KraussMaffei Group and is also a member of the Advisory Board of Pöppelmann GmbH & Co KG.

During his career, Karlheinz Bourdon has been involved in numerous committees, the VDI, the VDMA Plastics and Rubber Machinery Association, the European Plastics and Rubber Machinery Association (EUROMAP), the Südwestmetall employers’ association, research at Fraunhofer and, last but not least, the IKV.

A “veteran of injection molding machine construction”

This year’s award winner is known as a “veteran of injection molding machine construction”, who has been particularly committed to implementing new findings and technologies in injection molding machine construction and the injection molding process for more than 30 years, true to Menges’ credo of “research for practical application”, said Professor Hopmann in his laudatory speech. At IKV, he had already dealt with topics that have not lost their relevance to this day. As a long-standing member of the Board of Trustees and member of the Board of the IKV Sponsors’ Association, Karlheinz Bourdon was also always keen to help create the conditions for a successful career for future generations. The importance of the necessary ingredients for this – technical expertise, system understanding and innovation and market orientation – are close to his heart. “So this plastics career started 45 years ago at IKV and today we are honoring an alumnus for the first time,” he said at the end: “We would like to express our sincere thanks for the many innovations in injection moulding technology, but also for the profound evidence of his success in translating scientific findings into new products, for his commitment to research and transfer in the IKV Sponsors’ Association and for supporting our work at IKV. At the same time, I would like to congratulate him personally and on behalf of the prize donors on this special award.”

“The best successes in my life have always been the ones that were hard to achieve and only possible with full personal commitment”

In his acceptance speech, award winner Dr. Bourdon spoke about his path into the world of injection moulding and his time at IKV, which equipped him with all the important tools for his career. Prof. Menges’ personality and the way in which research at IKV is understood as teamwork, in which individuals are both encouraged and challenged, played a not insignificant role. He appealed to his young colleagues at IKV, but also in the industry: “Make use of your good training and do your work with dedication and passion!” This is particularly important right now. “The best successes in my life were always the ones that were hard to achieve and only with total personal commitment,” he added. He thanked the donors of the award for the decades of good cooperation and the lively exchange: “Let’s continue to fight for plastic and do the things that still need to be done! Because plastic is actually a great material – only too few people know it.”

About being awarded the Georg Menges Prize

The Georg Menges Prize was established in 1999 to mark the 75th birthday of Georg Menges, the long-standing director of the Institute of Plastics Processing (IKV). Georg Menges would have been 100 years old at the end of last year. The prize named after him is now in its 25th year and has been awarded in memoriam since 2022. The founders of the prize continue to pursue Georg Menges’ guiding principle that research and business absolutely belong together and that constant exchange between science and industry is necessary to achieve innovation. The Georg Menges Prize recognizes the continuous transfer achievements of the award winners, who are shaping the future of the plastics industry in a special way.