How banknotes become counterfeit-proof: häwa supplies the perfect stainless steel cabinet

Wain, January 26, 2021. When two market leaders cooperate, extraordinary results are guaranteed. häwa GmbH, the worldwide highly acclaimed supplier of control cabinets, and Georg Sahm Maschinenfabrik have already been successfully co-operating for many years. The latest joint product is the basis for worldwide safe payment transactions. Leading technologies for printing counterfeit-proof banknotes, for example, are also made in Germany.

Around the globe, banknotes of almost all currencies are secured against counterfeiting with security strips and holograms. Security features, which require high precision manufacturing. Georg Sahm GmbH & Co. KG, headquartered in Eschwege, Germany, is not only a world-wide technology leader in the field of automatic precision winders for high-performance fibers, but has also been a long-term customer and partner of häwa GmbH when customized solutions in special cabinet construction are required. For Georg Sahm Maschinenfabrik, short development times and clearly defined budgets together with häwa's comprehensive know-how play a significant role. 

häwa received an extremely challenging inquiry for the printing of banknotes from an international banknote manufacturer. The cabinet housing had to meet extremely high requirements regarding cooling and tightness to allow maintaining the specific manufacturing conditions for security strips to be inserted into the future banknotes. High humidity, excessive temperatures and aggressive chemicals in the ambient air are challenging factors in this process.

“Thanks to our long-term cooperation and häwa’s decades-long experience in customized cabinet manufacturing, we designed the optimum solution for our customer together”, explains Martin Schmidt, Head of Purchasing at Georg Sahm. The cabinet had to be made of stainless steel, with a height of 2,000 millimeters plus a 100-millimeter-high base, a width of 800 millimeters and a depth of 600 millimeters. A cooling unit also had to be integrated. Therefore, häwa first had to determine the required power consumption of the cooling unit. The door is equipped with a built-in cooling unit type KF1200. The cooling unit is covered with a protective hood, which ensures the separation of the air circuits (air inlet/outlet) and thereby allowing the use of a non-filter cooling unit. The customer also required a hinged door with a viewing window to protect the installed terminal as well as a roof with holes for the cable routing and a completely machined mounting plate with about 150 threaded holes and other specific requirements.

The technical features were optimized in joint project work before häwa submitted a detailed offer. Based on the standard stainless steel cabinet type H370, whose protection rating was increased to IP65 by adapting the locking system and seal, häwa finally designed a customized cabinet made of stainless steel V4A, which has meanwhile been delivered several times. The result: a customized solution that meets the highest standards, ensuring that people all over the world can make their purchases with counterfeit-proof banknotes.