Q&A: Royal HaskoningDHV Digital meets Hellebrekers

Q&A

Question 1

What do Hellebrekers and Royal HaskoningDHV Digital do?
Maurice: Hellebrekers Industriële Automatisering is a system integrator for the manufacturing and process industry. We specialise in the design, realisation and integration of control systems that optimise the production process.

With our software and hardware, customers can increase productivity, make fast adjustments to production, and reduce the likelihood and cost of failure. Our solutions include cabling, control cabinets, PLC process control, SCADA process visualisation and MES software. But also new technology like in- and end-of-line robotics for the food industry.

Sebastiaan: The great thing is that Hellebrekers’ automation solutions generate a lot of data. And working with that data is where we come in. Our data science experts are specialised in helping organisations to do more with the data available in their business environments.

Data science is an incredible tool for improving decision making and solving complex problems, and we provide those capabilities to companies across numerous sectors. For example, we help clients to optimise logistics within the port sector, identify abnormalities within water systems, and have even helped doctors to detect heart disease.

By combining the knowledge of our domain experts with powerful algorithms, situations can be mapped out more clearly and anomalies can be detected faster, without the need for human intervention. Working together, Hellebrekers and Royal HaskoningDHV Digital can provide something really unique and help the industry take a big step forward.

Question 2

Why did you choose to work together?

Maurice: Our customers are always looking to make their process faster and more efficient. Hellebrekers is good at unlocking and combining production data. But we needed a partner who could translate this data into actionable insight, so our customers can determine what steps are needed to optimise their production processes.

We found that partner in Royal HaskoningDHV Digital. Not only do their data and digital consultancy services and software have an excellent track record, there is also a wonderful match for us in terms of culture. Both our organisations are supported by young, ambitious people with a focus on quality, commitment and customer-oriented thinking.

Sebastiaan: We clicked with Hellebrekers immediately, which is always a good sign, and quickly saw an opportunity to collaborate to solve problems in different markets. Working together, we can provide customers with a complete solution – from the design and realisation of automation concepts, to the thorough analysis of production data.

We’ve already completed a number of successful projects together. Our next step is to look at which customers and prospects are most suited to our partnership. We’re currently working with an expert supervise this aspect of our collaboration.

Question 3

What is the advantage of integrating data science into your production line?

Maurice: Taking a reactive approach to events is no longer acceptable in the modern production environment. Companies are often looking retrospectively for information about why certain things happened, and the answers can always be found in data.

By linking events with production data – along with external data about things like environmental factors – companies can gain a greater understanding of why things happened, and then take a proactive approach to make sure they don’t happen again.

They can then use things like self-learning algorithms to automatically adjust production processes in line with changing conditions, ensuring continuity and quality at all times.

Sebastiaan: People are generally looking for a better grip on their production processes. You get that by having better insight into what is happening now and what will happen going forwards.

It’s all about having the visibility to answer the questions most companies can’t. For instance, how can I reduce waste or optimise material efficiency? With data from production processes and the latest data science techniques, those answers present themselves clearly.

Question 4

What do you think the production process of the future will look like?

Maurice: Companies will increasingly want to move towards a more transparent and integrated production process. This will enable them to move from taking a reactive stance to operations through manual data analysis, to a proactive one, using integrated algorithms to improve visibility and insight.

Thanks to improvements in technology, it’s becoming easier to store production data externally in order to combine it with external sources, so this will become commonplace. That will greatly improve production continuity and safety.

Sebastiaan: Ultimately, it is now possible to automatically optimise the production process with integrated self-learning algorithms. We are really moving towards the age of the prescriptive digital twin, a digitalised replica of the entire production process.

In the future, all existing hardware will be equipped with sensors, and all data will be collected in the cloud and turned into actionable insight. Coincidence and gut feeling will then be things of the past.

This means companies will always know what is going on, will be able to predict what is going to happen, and will automatically optimise processes based on those insights.

Want to know more?

If you’d like to know more about this collaboration, the optimisation of your production process or what data science can do for you, then please get in touch.