Niels Kruijer
Mechanises production and logistics processes on both sides of the line: the design and the implementation — new builds, expansion and automation through to ramp-up.
His interest in processes began on his father’s bulb farm. Since then he has run programmes in fashion, pharma, engineering and agribusiness: from stock reduction to mechanising entire factories.
Niels has been bringing mechanisation programmes to execution since 1998, after studying business administration and industrial engineering and management in Twente. Within Supply Today, he is the orchestrator on the toughest mechanisation challenges: new builds, expansion and automation of production and distribution processes. He is a course leader for logistics management programmes and a guest lecturer at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences — so he also trains the people who do this work. He himself mechanises production and logistics processes on both sides of the line: the design and the implementation. That combination is rarer than it seems — those who only design do not see where execution goes wrong, and those who only implement inherit a design that does not fit.
At an importer and processor of exotic fresh produce, he was the project leader with final responsibility for four and a half years for the mechanisation and infrastructure of a new 22,000 m² building, with ripening rooms, sorting and packing. He developed the layout options together with the architect, designed the logistics solution per process — fully automated pallet warehouse, automatic supply to production, depalletising and palletising robots, eight pick-and-place robots — built the business case model with the controllers and the CFO, carried out the supplier selection, simulated the design, handled the IT integration with the new ERP via the MES layer, and led the execution through FAT, SAT, training and ramp-up.
Before that, he spent two years as programme manager at a logistics service provider, reporting to the CEO: an ERP and WMS implementation, and a mechanised process for order picking, packing and sorting that delivered a 40% cost saving. He also designed a new 50,000 m² building and handled the onboarding of a multinational telecoms client — from negotiating the SLAs to the move and the start-up.
At the fresh food processor that slumped after go-live, he was brought in for his knowledge of automation — the part in which the operation had lost confidence.
He works close to the floor and keeps the supplier on its toes: in a mechanised programme, the difference between a good and a mediocre installation lies in details that only become visible during ramp-up. That is why he stays until the client’s own maintenance team can manage on its own.
