Vanderlande

VANDERLANDE WRITTEN BY SANDOR HABETS

Vanderlande is the global market leader for future-proof logistic process automation which almost every Mechanical Engineering student would know from their large role in airport logistics. This is, of course, an important part of Vanderlande, but not every student tends to be aware of all of their activities and what this company has to offer. Therefore, I was glad to get the opportunity to interview Joep Michels about his experiences within Vanderlande.

Vanderlande

Vanderlande started as a family business in the Dutch town of Veghel active in the refurbishing and production of machines for the textile industry. Nowadays, it is present in each of the world’s expanding markets. It has continued to grow and is now a reliable partner for future proof logistic process automation. The activities of Vanderlande can be subdivided into three branches: airports, parcels and warehousing. • Airports: You might be familiar with the conveyer belts of

Vanderlande, but this company can actually be responsible for the entire passenger experience at an airport, from bag drop and passenger security checks to the storage, sortation, flight make-up and the eventual baggage reclaim.

Their systems are active in around 600 airports across the

globe. A challenge that this company is currently working on is the use of automated vehicles for baggage transportation. • Warehousing: This is an enormously growing market.

Warehousing deals with very complex logistics that require high-quality algorithms. Ideally, the entire warehouse should be fully automatized and this requires a lot of flexibility in handling the levels of orders. All variables need to be taken into account, from how many orders can be stored in a trolley or truck, to the ductility, shape and layout of a single product. • Parcels: Especially at this time, the parcel industry is extremely important with increasingly more demands from its customers. This means that meeting service level demands are becoming increasingly tough. Every day, the systems of Vanderlande sort more than 48 million parcels.

Role within the company

Joep is not an unfamiliar face within our association. He studied Mechanical Engineering here in Eindhoven and graduated in Systems Engineering in 2012. He ended up at Vandelande by visiting one of the open days at the company that was organized via the TU/e. He was looking for a job in which he could combine his interest in technology with his organizational skills. When he applied for the job of integration engineer, it was instantly a

great match. He started as an integration engineer within the airport business on relatively smaller projects comparable in size to the airport of Eindhoven. His role wasto integrate different products (multidisciplinary) into one working system and making sure the system works as specified. When a project was sold, it was his task to ‘translate’ the customers’ demands for the engineers who will eventually develop it. Next, he monitored the different developments and made sure that all developments were delivered on time with the right level of quality. When certain parts have been delivered and integrated he executes test plans to make sure the system works as expected and all defects are fixed before the system is taken into operations. The testing of the system is always done in two different phases. Firstly, software development is always tested in-house in Veghel. A model is made of all physical equipment to which the controlling software is applied. In this way, a lot of tests can be performed in a relatively short period of time. Besides, it is important to identify potential risks as quickly as possible in the process and by doing so, increasing the efficiency and reducing the costs.

The earlier issues are discovered the cheaper it is to fix them. For example, correcting a requirement before it has been developed is much cheaper than finding out with a test that the software is not working as expected because of a wrong requirement. If thetests in Veghel have been executed successfully the software can be deployed on site. During the second phase, tests on site with real equipment can be executed. . You can imagine that the possible risks need to be as small as possible before performing a test on the final location with thousands of suitcases. Al functions which require on-site equipment will still be tested on site. Due to the on-site tests, he visited a lot of different locations in the first three years at Vanderlande from ranging from our own Schiphol or Vietnam to slightly less familiar holiday destinations such as Turkmenistan and Saudi-Arabia where he would stay for a couple of months each time.

After being an integration engineer for two years, he continued his career as an integration manager where he was allowed to lead his own projects. With this new position, he became responsible for coordinatiion with the customer, the planning, managing budgets and execution of the tests. This also includes support during the sales phase in which it is important to try sell as many standards as possible. Over the years, the company has developed an extensive portfolio of products that are guaranteed to work and can therefore be delivered faster and cheaper. It is essential to know exactly what the customer wants in order to see whether most of their requirements can already be met with the standards.

For every project there is a certain amount of time and a budget available. It is the responsibility of the integration manager to create a test strategy which allows Vanderlande to deliver a project on time within the budgets with the right quality. In comparison to his time as an integration engineer, Joep is currently less concerned with the technology itself and more focused on organizing. It has, however, been very beneficial for his current position to have focused on the technology for a few years first.

Projects

For most of his career, Joep has worked on projects within the airport sector with only one exception. For two years, he worked on a project centered around a very large warehouse of the Woolworths company in Australia. This was a unique challenge as this was the first project of its kind for Vanderlande and almost every single part of the process had to be developed from scratch. The goal was to create an almost fully automatized order picking process for the delivery of goods. The process starts with the arrival of goods packaged on pallets which are stored in the high bay storage. Certain characteristics such as weight, shape and ductility of a product are all stored in the software. All pallets are unpiled automatically and stored separately in the second

part of the system. When Woolworths orders a pack of goods, the goods are sent to a robot that stacks and wraps the package automatically. The ‘tetris’ software uses characteristics such as weight and shape to find the optimal way to stack the goods. If the pallets are finished, they are picked up by automated guided vehicles who deliver them to the right lorry. Even factors such as equal division of weight inside the truck are taken into account in the software. You can imagine that a system like this is very complex. Joeps role in this project was to manage the factory test phase were he directed a group of 7 test engineers. His team was constantly testing new products and functionalities. All the defects were fed back to the software engineers. With this information the software engineers fixed the defects, created new versions which were tested again... If the quality level was sufficient the software was sent to site were certain parts were tested again before the system was taken into production by the customer.

After the Woolworths project, he returned to the airport sector when given the opportunity to work as an integration manager again in a large project concerning the automation of a terminal of Stockholm-Arlanda Airport.. Unfortunately, this project will not go beyond the design phase, since the extension of the airport has been postponed due to the current pandemic. Hopefully, other ongoing projects such as the airport of Oslo will continue as normal.

Working for Vanderlande

Vanderlande offers a wide variety of positions and roles for Mechanical Engineers. There are a lot of projects in diverse sectors where you can work in different ways, depending on whether you prefer programming, R&D, organizing, etc. So almost every student should be able to find a role that suits you (unless you are looking for a very specific specialization such a fluid mechanics etc.)

Joep really enjoys working for Vandelande. When he started working for this company, it was still more of a family business. Over the years, the growth of this company has been very noticeable in the way of working within the company. The company aims to do a lot for each individual, i.e. the facilitation of leisure/sports activities for their employees. Despite the growth, it remains a warm company with a pleasant work atmosphere. Joep indicated that he likes that there is also an entrepreneurial aspect to his job. You can run your own project from beginning to end and have a lot of freedom in how you manage and complete it. Being able to eventually deliver a final product to a customer gives a great feeling of accomplishment.

Joep advises students to make good use of their student time for self-development, enjoying it and figuring out what you really like to do. When he was still a student, he did a board-year within our Association. He learned a lot of valuable skills that year from which he greatly benefitted in the early years of his career. Furthermore, try to orientate yourself within the labour market as soon as possible and visit different companies to find out what is suits you best!

Interested?

Are you intrigued by all the complex projects that Vanderlande works on and by what this company has to offer? For more information about this company and the possibilities for you within Vanderlande, visit the website www.vanderlande.com/ about-vanderlande/. If you are interested to be an intern/ graduate in this dynamic company, visit the website careers. vanderlande.com/students-and-interns/ or send a mail to internship@vanderlande.com.