From a German customer’s request to a solution

Many German growers and processors automatically assume that Dutch machine builders mainly develop solutions for Dutch applications. And, to be fair, they used to have a point.

Take box sizes, for example. In the Netherlands, boxes with a width of 1.60 metres are common. In Germany, however, boxes measuring 2.25 or even 2.40 metres wide are standard. It may seem like a small difference, but for a machine builder it represents an entirely different reality.

That is precisely why, several years ago, we started paying close attention to feedback from the German market.

Through our customers and our German dealer, Muss Agrartechnik, we were getting the same question more and more often: Can you also develop solutions for our larger boxes? The short answer was yes. The longer answer turned out to be a lot more complicated.

A larger box doesn’t simply require a larger machine. The box itself has a different construction. It often contains a central tie rod for additional strength. The supporting structure is different, and the way the boxes are filled, transported and stacked also changes.

As a result, our existing machines could not simply be scaled up.

What some might have expected to be a few technical modifications quickly became the development of an entirely new machine. The hopper had to be widened. The filling systems required redesign. The grippers used to pick up the boxes had to be engineered from scratch. And once those components changed, the stackers and buffer systems also needed to be adapted.

Perhaps even more importantly, everything still had to work together seamlessly.

In the end, the development process took around eight months. Not because we wanted to invent something completely new, but because we wanted to translate an existing philosophy into a different market.

That project reinforced what we at VHM have always believed: a machine never operates in isolation. A box filler must work seamlessly with a stacker. A stacker must integrate with a buffer system. And the buffer system must contribute to an efficient logistics flow.

That is why we strongly believe in modular solutions.

Our customers can start with a relatively small investment and expand their system over time by adding additional modules. This makes investments more manageable while allowing the system to grow alongside the business.

We see this reflected in projects such as Europlant in Germany, where we provide crate logistics for a modern sorting line. Thanks to smart automation, many unnecessary forklift movements have been eliminated, and empty boxes are no longer moved unnecessarily. The result is increased capacity, greater efficiency, and fewer manual operations.

It is no surprise that interest from Germany is growing rapidly.

Even so, many German growers and processors are still unaware that VHM now offers solutions for boxes measuring 1.60, 1.80, 2.25 and 2.40 metres in width.

And that is a missed opportunity. Because perhaps the most valuable lesson we learned from that 2.40-metre German box is this: if you truly listen to your customers, you discover opportunities you would never have imagined from behind your desk.

Johan Kikstra
Commercial Director, VHM Machinery