Robert Lugauer will lead both the graphics and intralogistics divisions of Germany-based control systems developer EAE following his appointment as chief executive.

EAE – which stands for Engineering Automation Electronics – is the Ahrensburg-headquartered company owned by QI Press Controls founding partners Erik van Holten and Menno Jansen.

Lugauer (pictured) was born in southern Germany and graduated in mathematics at the University of Konstanz before joining research and development department of Siemens in 1988, where he focussed on image processing and recognition systems for letters and parcels. After working on algorithm and product development, he switched to customer project management and led CEP projects at home and abroad, and was appointed vice president customer projects for the sorting systems segment and later for baggage handling.

In 2014, he joined Interroll as head of its conveying and sorting global centre of excellence, and served as managing director of Interroll Automation. Finally as general manager, Lugauer supported the integration of the Transnorm Group into Honeywell.

EAE says he brings comprehensive know-how of recognition systems and intralogistics, a market in which his experience in operational and strategic business processes and will make a significant contribution.

Founded in 1962 by electrical engineer Richard Ewert as Ewert Ahrensburg Electronics, EAE became part of the Netherlands-headquartered QIPC group in April 2014. Longstanding employee and software engineer Heiko Küttner and former managing director of Gämmerler Jörg Westphal were appointed chief executives in September 2017 on the retirement of Werner Ringel.

More than 550 newspaper printing plants worldwide use EAE's control systems to produce more than 125 million newspapers a day.