The biggest challenge of industrial transformation, which requires strong, concrete and immediate action, is to balance addressing environmental and social challenges with financial performance.
This is key to the long-term sustainability of our industry. In the chemical industry, conserving natural resources, reducing our energy consumption and recovering heat are key issues that concern every link in the supply chain. We also need to increase the share of energy from renewable sources, both electrical power and hydrogen, and use smart digital solutions to further improve efficiency. In addition, engaging and controlling our own supply chain is an important lever. Finally, we need to anticipate the changing expectations and needs of end consumers, especially the younger generation.
“ We need to anticipate the changing expectations and needs of end consumers, especially the younger generation. ”
To meet all these challenges, we are looking for strategic partnerships based on longterm cooperation. From partners such as Kraftanlagen, we expect complete solutions, the continued provision of qualified teams, and the consideration of our expectations in terms of environmental and social responsibility in both their offerings and their own organisations, across the entire value chain, whether between Kraftanlagen and its suppliers and subcontractors, or between Kraftanlagen and its clients.
The solution: we build our offer based on our clients’ needs.
We design and build solutions that meet the challenges of the industrial sector: complex international trade relations, high costs for energy and CO2 emissions, pressure on competitiveness, increasingly complex regulations and a shortage of skilled labour. Indeed, our consultants, engineers and technicians are able to provide tailor-made solutions to complex problems, whether by providing engineering services, ensuring regulatory compliance or by designing, building and operating appropriate solutions. Being much more than just good operators, we accompany our clients from the moment they express a need, like the major Asian manufacturer who wished to build a new factory in the Netherlands: we provided them with advice to complete their design, incorporating Dutch standards and regulations, with a view to subsequently carrying out the execution and maintenance. Many clients wish to engage in long-term partnerships for this type of issue.
“ The energy transition also occupies a major place in industry. ”
Our clients suffer daily from the rising price of energy and direct or indirect costs associated with CO2 emissions. This can hinder their investments and for some of them it is actually less expensive not to produce. Luckily, we can design and build solutions with short payback periods for these clients. For example, our consultants analysed the installations and energy processes of a bulk liquid storage company to identify solutions for savings, some of which were implemented immediately, such as a decrease in temperature, separation of the piping network and the installation of an electric boiler.
Performance is another key issue for our clients: our customised solutions contribute to making industrial processes more efficient, notably thanks to digital technology. By combining the technical and technological knowhow of our local teams with that of our in-house experts and by using applications developed both in-house and externally, we can accelerate our clients’ industrial transition. Our Smart Factory digital manufacturing execution system (MES) tool, for example, is a complete solution for automation of the entire production process. It has enabled an agri-food client that produces according to a recipe and by batch (reception of raw materials, dosing, grinding, mixing and loading the finished product) to perform at greater speed, efficiency and flexibility, with improved quality and at a lower price. This expertise makes us the market leader in the field of agri-food dosing and mixing facilities.