Jos - Senior System Engineer

“As System Engineer you are the link between the customer and your own organisation.”

As System Engineer at Houdijk Holland, it is important to interpret the customer’s requirements correctly and translate them into a solution that matches our existing systems as far as possible. The daily activities that arise from this can be divided into three layers. To start with, we do lots of quotation work. Our sales colleagues work on the estimation based on the layout we conceive in response to the customer’s requirements. Once the order is placed we create a project scope, and our Lead Engineers then get started on a draft design of the system. In the second stage I focus on testing concepts that we include in our layouts. This happens when the quotation begins to become more definitive. This testing of a new system takes place in our own Model Shop.

We have a highly diverse customer base. One customer may be highly advanced with respect to production line technology, while another may still be operating with manual packing lines. That is where the challenge lies for us! We advise these customers and explore new possibilities for them. People are flexible; they can more easily accept ‘damaged’ biscuits that fail to meet standard sizes or patterns. It is up to us to examine whether it is interesting pricewise to opt for a new system from Houdijk. As System Engineer I am the link between the customer and our organisation in this regard, and that makes it a nice challenge. 

The work is varied and travelling to our domestic and international customers is also interesting. Through these visits to customers, I get a good feeling for the products we make here. The fact that almost all the new machines are assembled and tested in our factory is also a nice aspect of working for a technical company like Houdijk. It lets you see what is actually created, from the drawing board through to the completed systems in the customer’s factory.