The future has - long since - begun

For over twenty years, Dertec has been supplying stainless steel drives for the food industry. And with success. The company has grown substantially in these years and is now run by founder Frans Noest, his three children and a fifth man for technical R&D. Fully attuned to each other, the road to the future is set with both expanding the geographical market and deepening the product range.

About seven years ago, ten people worked at family-owned Dertec. That number has now grown to 45, including the three children of founder and owner Frans Noest. Sons Martijn and Mark are responsible for purchasing and sales respectively, while daughter Mandy has become proficient in human resources and finance. By now the three successors have been with the company for almost ten years and know all the ins and outs of the company, the market in which it operates, the products of course and the vision of their father Frans. Mandy: "All three of us made a conscious decision to join the company and find our own place in it. We also have the same goal to continue the original vision and to provide companies in the food industry with high quality hygienic stainless steel drives and components. With this we are building not only the future of the company but of all of us."

Involve all employees

By "all," Mandy is not just referring to the family members, by the way, between whom the bond is strong. Frans: "In fact, all employees are family and are treated as such. You notice that people enjoy going to work here and that bears fruit on all fronts." Precisely because of this bond, it is not surprising that in addition to four family members, the MT also includes an employee who is not family. This allows Dertec to work with a team in which everyone has their own specialty and covers the needs of the company. Jeroen Kok heads the Operations and R&D department and is enthusiastic about Dertec's focus on the 'configure to order' approach. "There are still very few companies in the stainless steel drive technology industry that work this way," he points out. "However, it is an approach that gives our customers every opportunity to assemble their products in such a way that they optimally fit the design of their machine or plant. Almost 'custom made'. Furthermore, our Engineering Department works with parametric modeling and generative designs on the basis of which we have now built up a particularly large database with which we can meet a large part of the issues from the market. Efficient and maximally flexible. Technical developments include the further development of stainless steel synchronous motors; specifically in the context of further minimizing energy consumption."

Europe. And beyond

The expansion currently underway in the company is related, among other things, to serving a significantly larger market than the Netherlands alone. Meanwhile, in Europe, the company cooperates with several companies that act as official representatives. Employees of the export department regularly visit the locations and the corresponding customers in order to provide maximum support here as well. "In addition, we recently set up our own sales company in Italy: Dertec Italia BV," reports Frans not without pride. "This branch is run by one of our former Italian partners who knows our product range down to the last detail and also has mastered the Italian market due to his more than 20 years of experience. This allows him to provide optimal support in this country. Furthermore, we are also exploring possible expansion towards other continents than Europe." Mandy concludes, "There is much more to tell about Dertec and we will certainly do so through the various social media and other communication channels. By the way, we can still use someone for that. Anyone interested in this, I would like to refer them to www.werkenbijdertec.nl."