Knowledge, Wrapped in Stainless Steel

Hosokawa Micron, manufacturer of powder processing equipment in the Netherlands, is one of those companies that is hardly affected by the recession. The company is growing; it recently signed a contract for the supply of a large agglomeration plant for the detergent industry in Eastern Europe. The secret, according to managing director Christophe Krug: to keep developing in-house knowledge, to be flexible and come up with smart solutions for the customer. "And above all, to be reliable."

The product

Hosokawa Micron develops and manufactures all kinds of equipment for drying, mixing and agglomeratoin (binding and solubilising) of all possible substances. And these devices are then used to process products such as soup, detergent powder or medicines. In Hosokawa Micron's assembly hall, a mixer is being worked on, a huge conical colossus with a circumference of about five meters. "The largest one we made had a capacity of 100 cubic meters, the smallest being 100 milliliters, and we also make everything in between," Krug says.

The Process

As impressive as all these stainless steel conical mixers and dryers are, the secret of Hosokawa Micron lies mainly in the technological know-how that is available, says Krug. "Our core business is process technology, the knowledge of drying, mixing and agglomeration substances. What we ultimately produce is the final piece. It starts with the customer's demand. Take a pharmaceutical company, for example. It wants to make pills and powders containing different substances. We start working on that from our knowledge of processing raw materials. We study the process, devise solutions, test them, make improvements and test again. And then we make it."

Testing, that's what it's all about, says Krug. "Testing until you find the best, the most efficient solution for the customer's process." At Hosokawa Micron, therefore, we have an extensive Test Centre, where a customer's production process can be simulated and tested.

Growth

Hosokawa Micron B.V. is part of a Japanese conglomerate, which in 1993 merged four companies in the Netherlands into one in Doetinchem. Since then, it has been experiencing considerable growth, says Krug. "With a downturn in 2009, when many companies could not or dared not invest and orders were cancelled. But the economy has ups and downs, and we had confidence in our business. Now we are growing again, extremely so. We are even struggling to get the work done, I sometimes worry about that. Compared to more nationally or regionally oriented companies, our advantage is that we mainly run on exports. We are a global player, we are in China, in India, in the US. And especially in Germany, which with its strong economy is an important trading partner for us."

Quality

As a global player, Hosokawa Micron is not the only company in the field of process technology, states Christophe Krug, "But we are a reliable partner with our technological know-how and high-quality equipment. And Hosokawa Micron is unique because of its flexibility and solution-oriented approach. It is important to offer customers the right solution not only from a technological point of view, but also in terms of efficiency and the quality of the production process. If you can make improvements in that, the customer immediately reaps the rewards. And what we make, the piece of stainless steel around our knowledge, that is high-quality. Our oldest delivered machine has been running for 50 years, without any problems, with only a little maintenance every now and then. Talk about reliability."