TRADE AND MARKETING Schouten focuses more on export and commerce after 75 years ture of solid machinery, sobriety at the office and on the work floor, no fat cars for the directors, but good pay for everyone. That’s the style that has characterised Schouten Sorting Equipment BV in Kampen for the past 75 years in the same way as it characterises Schouten’s famous jump grading installations. But there is a change in the air, the Schouten brothers, Gerben (35) and Arjan (40) reveal. The company that has always been production-oriented is going commercial in the coming years. The change follows two developments: the successful designs of the potato processing lines for export and the expansion of the activities in the flower bulb and chicory sectors. N ‘What will definitely be different in five years’ time is that you’re going to find our machinery in more places in the world. Especially in the domain of the potato.’ o funny business, just hard work, the manufacWhat is the secret of 75 years of Schouten Kampen BV? (GS) ‘Just be your normal self, that’s crazy enough. That is, in essence, the power of our company, I think. It’s that mentality or whatever you want to call it that has definitely contributed to the fact that we’re still making plenty of jump graders for the seed potato sector. When we started with them a long time ago we were in a really competitive market with seven other brands. Meanwhile, we’re one of the few that still make this type of machine, which makes this a niche market. Another strong point is, I think, that Schouten supplies good, solid and also afFordable machinery. We’re still looking after equipment that we sold in the 1980s. Furthermore, we closely watch the production costs and general expenditure. That doesn’t mean that we’re not investing. For many years, we have steadily worked on optimising the manufacturing process. Especially in the past five years, we’ve made considerable progress.’ (AS) ‘I also think that we’ve made important decisions at the right moment in those 75 years. For example, we started to modernise our drafting and design department many years ago. And we now have eight design engineers working here. By drawing in 3D, we’re able to make quick adjustments to our machinery. It’s also given us new work such as the designing of complete potato processing lines. We’ve also known periods in our sector when everyone had to step down a bit. Thanks to reasonable production costs, we’ve always been able to maintain a good sales position. We’re also targeting export, which is the reason that we’ve been able to sell to companies abroad for twenty years. Look at Scotland, for example. We’ve been selling machines to that country for over thirty years. I guess that 90 percent of the grading machines on seed potato farms there come from us. In total, about one third of our machinery leaves the Netherlands.’ You were talking just now about big steps in production. What are these, apart from the modern graphics work? (AS) ‘A serious investment we did two years ago was the purchase of the 3D laser cutter for tubes and plates. We can slide up to 6 metres of unprocessed tubing into the laser cutter, which comes out again with holes, grooves, grooved fittings and lips, all precision-customised. This offers possibilities for new constructions and connections. It’s much more accurate, the welding work is neater and ultimately the end product is better and looks nicer. Everybody remembers Schouten from all the wood in the jump graders. This has mostly been replaced by metal, but it still looks as neat as the wood in the old days. The laser cutter enables faster manufacturing. Potato World 2012 • number 4 5 Pagina 4
Pagina 6Heeft u een handleiding, turn pages of efolders? Gebruik Online Touch: presentatie digitaal op uw website plaatsen.
Potatoworld 2012/4 Lees publicatie 26Home