Austrian Klinker Kontor and FH Upper Austria create innovation together

Research collaborations between FH Upper Austria and local SMEs create added value for both sides. The university benefits by conducting practice‑oriented research that is directly applied in the field. Companies benefit by driving innovation in a professional environment that they may not have in‑house. The funding for such collaborations is supported by the ‘Innovation Voucher’. Austrian Klinker Kontor (ÖKK‑Klinker‑GmbH) made use of this €10,000 seed funding to explore possibilities for the automated production of clinker masonry.

(Wels, July 1, 2025). Investing in research and development is a major step for any company — one that is often taken only when innovation pressure becomes high. After all, whether research results will ultimately be applicable cannot always be predicted in advance. Small and medium‑sized enterprises receive support in this process through the FFG Innovation Voucher. This funding instrument provides €10,000 with an additional own contribution of €2,500 (net), helping companies take the first step toward R&D collaboration with a research institution. FH Upper Austria has long been a reliable partner to companies in the region. This project, too, is funded by the FFG (www.ffg.at).

The Bachmanning‑based company ÖKK‑Klinker‑GmbH used the Innovation Voucher to more closely examine possibilities for automation in clinker construction. The project was supervised by Stefan Jaksch, Professor of Structural Engineering and Construction Informatics, and Holger Gröning, Professor of Production Engineering, both from FH Upper Austria’s Wels Campus. “Constructing clinker walls is a craft in its own right. It’s a specialized form of what is known as facing masonry. Like in many skilled trades, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find qualified workers. So it makes sense to explore which parts of the process could be automated to ensure clinker walls remain affordable to produce,” explains Stefan Jaksch. The core goal of this project was to define a research field — because only precise research questions lead to meaningful results.

“A construction site is an extremely unpredictable environment, making it difficult for robots to operate effectively. That’s why many tasks still require human labor. In the case of ÖKK‑Klinker‑GmbH, the aim was to examine assistive robotics — so that the same number of bricklayers who currently build a single‑family home could, with technical support, also manage a much larger building such as a railway station, without costs spiraling or clinker façades being abandoned entirely,” says Jaksch. The project focused on generating ideas and identifying promising research directions. The team examined systems worldwide that already perform similar tasks and are successfully in use, and then considered how such technologies could be adapted for clinker façade construction. “We identified several promising avenues worth exploring further. The next step would be to test how these technical concepts behave in a controlled test environment,” Jaksch adds.

To achieve this kind of insight and forward‑thinking perspective, SMEs especially need competent partners from reputable research institutions. These institutions can precisely assess the status quo and outline where R&D efforts are likely to pay off. For companies, this opens up innovation potential they might not have been able to uncover on their own. “For a company, deciding to invest money in research without knowing when — or even if — useful results will emerge is a big decision. Sometimes research leads to valuable outcomes, and sometimes it leads nowhere — that’s just reality. This is exactly why the Innovation Voucher is so valuable: companies can approach us as a research institution, and together we can develop new solutions,” says Jaksch in conclusion.

(AI-generated translation)