Engineering in the agricultural sector with SVgroup

SVgroup

Mark is technically responsible for the different production lines within SVgroup. “On a daily basis, I lead the engineering department. It’s a young and passionate team, which makes it very enjoyable to manage. SVgroup is also a very informal organization with plenty of room for individual initiative. As a company, we’re on the move and eager to grow.”

Wepro

Sven de Haan lives in Enschede. “For about a year now, I’ve been working as a mechanical project engineer. My interest in technology started in high school. I was strongest in the exact sciences, which led me to choose Mechanical Engineering as my field of study. After graduating, I joined Wepro. Because you work on a project basis at Wepro, you can develop both personally and technically. That was a very conscious choice for me.”

David Pijnenburg is from Almelo. “Since June 2021, I’ve been working at Wepro as a mechanical project engineer. I was always involved with cars, which sparked my interest in technology. After high school, I decided to study Automotive Engineering. During my studies, I had several contacts with Wepro. That developed into a good connection, and I decided to start working at Wepro.”

Innovative solutions and technologies

“Following the merger between Schuitemaker and Veenhuis, we’ve been heavily focused on standardization across product lines within SVgroup,” says Mark. “In the past, both brands had overlapping product portfolios. It’s great to be able to combine the best of both worlds. At the same time, we work every day on the machines of tomorrow. Sustainability, safety, and efficiency are key priorities for us. As is well known, the agricultural market is under considerable pressure, partly due to the nitrogen discussion. With innovative solutions and technologies, we aim to make the work of contractors and livestock farmers easier, so they can be there when it matters most.”

Sven adds: “I started by optimizing the bills of materials for the manure spreaders—the machines that distribute manure across the fields. The supply of parts wasn’t efficient enough, which meant required components weren’t always available at the right time. I optimized those lists and was able to implement improvements immediately. I then did the same for the manure tanks. After completing those projects, I started designing a tank body for a new entry-level model within the tank segment.”

New machine developments

“My task was to optimize the modular structure,” David explains.
“At SVgroup, they wanted to move toward a new way of creating bills of materials and toward a single model that essentially always applies. For example, SVgroup has the Rapide, which consists of many components, comes in numerous variants, and can be configured with various options. All of that needs to be captured in a model driven by a product configurator. When a customer orders a specific type with certain options, the configurator immediately generates the complete bill of materials. Initially, I was going to do this for just one machine, but by now I’ve developed it for several machines. In addition, I work on smaller design projects alongside this, such as designing a salt spreader frame.”

Flexibility and efficiency

Mark continues: “Through our collaboration with Wepro, we effectively have a flexible workforce that allows us to quickly absorb peaks in workload. We use this flexibility to temporarily focus on standardization and efficiency in the factory, without slowing down the development of new machines. Thanks to the short lines of communication with Wepro’s team and account manager, we can move quickly. We’ve built up very positive experiences with Wepro.”

“Wepro is active in our region, which means their technical colleagues often come from the same area. This ensures faster integration into our permanent engineering team. I’m very satisfied with our collaboration,” Mark concludes.

Short lines of communication

Sven is also very positive about the collaboration. “I felt at home at SVgroup right away—I’m treated as part of the team! On top of that, the contact between Wepro and SVgroup is excellent. I regularly speak with my team and account manager, which makes it easy to switch quickly if something comes up or if I need support.”

David agrees. “It doesn’t feel like I’m working 40 hours a week—the group is friendly and the atmosphere is great. I have good contact with my team and account manager, and if there’s an issue, it’s resolved immediately. There’s also strong communication between Wepro and SVgroup, which keeps the lines short,” he concludes.