Platform on civil engineering, underground infrastructure, energy, construction equipment & construction machinery
Digitizing, automating ... it may be less tangible than building a road or extending a pier, but we can no longer avoid it. "Changes in construction force you to embrace new processes. Digitalization is a crucial factor in this," observes Peter Winkeler, commercial manager at VanMeijel Automatisering. "We see a shift in the role of contractors and with it the importance of digitization."
"A contractor is more and more the directing party in a project. To keep a grip on the projects and the underlying processes, such as registering all kinds of issues around sustainability, a different information need must be met. The need and necessity for it is clear; digitization is in the top 3 goals companies want to achieve. But the step to digitization is sometimes still quite large. We support this because we know better than anyone else what an infrastructure company needs."
"An infrastructure company can distinguish itself particularly in the process," Winkeler continued, explaining, "Integrated contract forms mean that companies have to think very carefully about what they are going to build at the front end of the process. Works are getting bigger, more complex, risks are increasing and so is the need for insight and grip on the processes. Data is becoming more and more important." Jacob Koffeman, director at VanMeijel Automatisering adds: "Calculating, project monitoring and letting people work outside mobile so that digitization becomes easier, that's where we make the difference." Winkeler: "Whereas digitization used to be a party for the IT department, you see that nowadays it is an inseparable part of achieving your business and company goals. Management and users are increasingly determining the choice of a system or app."
VanMeijel Automatisering has been around for 35 years. The first 33 years of that they were primarily a software supplier. One with an enormous body of knowledge and experience. But the family business, where now the 2nd generation is at the helm and has the spirit, energy and plans of a start-up, VanMeijel Automatisering is nowadays a true innovation partner for its customers. Koffeman: "The technology works fine, but our added value as an innovation partner lies in thinking along in the ambitions and goals of our customers and the role of digitization in this. We pay attention to the changes they have to go through and provide concrete solutions. One way we do this is through strategy sessions with clients to ensure that users get more out of the platform. Those sessions are really a great success." VanMeijel Automatisering is a partner that can move quickly and goes through the digitization process with the customer in a much more demand-oriented way. Koffeman: "We no longer develop a product that we go to market with, no, we look together with our customers at the challenges of today and tomorrow within the industry, on which our software development is based. And we keep on developing."
"Automation is so much more than digitizing paperwork," Koffeman continued. "It's about bringing together and integrating the entire process, where many things come together. By addressing the total process, you can work more efficiently, print out requested reports, reduce errors and get more return from your projects. That's automation." VanMeijel works from two platforms: Metacom+ and Metacom Online. "This allows you to realize very quickly what the client wants and allows for a good estimation of how much time it takes to make the project and what it yields at the bottom of the line."
Winkeler: "The Cloud, another catch-all term within automation. Many of our solutions already run entirely via the web. This means that infrastructure companies no longer have to worry about technology and maintenance. We can completely relieve our customers of this. We also choose to put our ERP solution in the Cloud as a whole in one go, unlike others who do it module by module. Quite exciting, after all it has taken 30 years to build, but we like to do it right the first time. Once it's in the Cloud, the customer can assume they can do everything with it, just as they are used to doing now."
Winkeler concludes, "Automation is really a joint responsibility. VanMeijel pays attention to that change and helps purposefully with the step to digitization and the follow-up steps to full automation."
