Prof. Dirk Malzahn

Dipl. Math. Dirk Malzahn Principal Consultant OrgaTech GmbH Assistant Professor Hamburg Open University (Hamburger Fernhochschule)

Dirk works as Principal Consultant at OrgaTech GmbH, Lünen, Germany, and is Managing Director of the software subsidiary Accel. He is responsible for major customer and research projects in the fields of process quality, data quality and knowledge management. After receiving his diploma degree from Ruhr University Bochum in mathematics and information technology, he worked as IT manager for ThyssenKrupp, one of the world’s technology leaders in steel products. His first industrial research project was on the usage of neural networks for steel coating analysis. During his time at ThyssenKrupp he was one of the authors of the Software Process Model for German Steel Industry.

In 2001 he joined OrgaTech as Principal Consultant, holding responsibility and accountability for Research & Development and Quality Management. From 2004 to 2007 he was Project Manager of the federally co-funded research project SASQIA (Self-Assessments for Software Quality – Information and Answers). SASQIA developed a multi-model assessment approach and tool, allowing users to self-assess their organization against several standards in parallel. As a result of the SASQIA project, Accel was founded in 2007, and Dirk became managing director of the new company. In 2009 OrgaTech started a new research project, called OPTIKON, again with Dirk as project manager. OPTIKON develops a standard compliant process improvement approach based on ontologies, and is planned to be completed in 2012. For his paper on OPTIKON, Dirk received a best paper award from eKNOW 2011.

Dirk has been teaching software quality management, software engineering, project management and people management at Technical Academy of Esslingen for more than 15 years now. From 2007 to 2009 he lectured on Software Quality management at Dortmund University of Applied Science. Since 2009 he is Assistant Professor for Quality Management at Hamburg Open University (Hamburger Fern-Hochschule).

Dirk is a regular presenter at industrial conferences on software process improvement (SEPG, SPICE) and data quality (GIQMC). He has supported several IARIA conferences in various roles including, speaker, reviewer, sessions chair and panelist. He has published more than 40 papers in international journals, conferences and books.

He is on the editorial board of the International Journal on Advances in Life Sciences and received the IARIA Fellowship in 2011.