Alexander Koch studied production engineering at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU). He then worked there as a research assistant at the Chair of Engineering Design on the topic of form and position tolerances. In 2006, he received his doctorate in engineering from the FAU Faculty of Engineering with a thesis on the development of a method for visualizing the effects of form and position tolerances on components shape.

From 2006 to 2022, Prof. Koch worked in responsible management positions in the automotive, rail and commercial vehicle industries. During this time, he gained extensive experience in international shared development and global processes as well as in the business application of agile project management. One focus of Prof. Koch's activities was on the improvement of product development methods such as the consistent application and optimization of Design for X. During this time, numerous patents were applied for and publications were released. Alexander Koch is co-initiator of a commercial workbench for the investigation of complex casting geometries in early design phases.

Prof. Koch is head of the Institute for Technical Product Development and will work on several key aspects in this area. One focus topic of the institute is safeguarding the maturity level in the case of shared development in the area of system of systems – a particular emphasis will be placed on the role of humans in this shared development process. Another core area of research will be the design process of components for additive manufacturing. In this research field, humans play again a central role as designers. In addition, the agile development of physical products is still part of the institute's research scope.

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