Long live the 4th industrial revolution! Or are we already at 5?

Preliminary fun leading up to this article. With so much smart innovation, you start fantasizing. About visiting a high-tech campus in Eindhoven or Twente. An unapproachable building full of clean, white hospital rooms, where immaculate Japanese robots call the shots. The route planner directs us to the Voltastraat in Hoogeveen. Brink Industrial's building is gray and unassuming. Neat, but not something to win the architecture prize. Inside, offices without much adornment, nice people with smiles on their faces. But down on the shop floor, there he stands ...

A brand new, self-thinking, autonomous production line. Some 40 meters long. Just prepare a portion of thin metal sheets, a bit like putting paper in the drawer of a printer. A second, even slightly more advanced production line is nearing completion; soon they will make room for number three. At the push of a button, the system does its pre-programmed work: laser cutting, hole punching, bending, folding an upright edge, turning a quarter turn for the next edge - and then quickly moving on with the gripper to the next operation. The fully automatic job machine can set itself up in 3 seconds where a traditional machine would take an employee half an hour. Error-free and without afternoon dips, day and night if necessary. Another job in between? In technical jargon, that's called "the ability to work chaotically. Not an inch of material goes to waste.

Director Wido van den Brink explains: "That is perhaps the biggest difference. This way of working requires very little human intervention. You basically keep two types of personnel: highly skilled people who program the line and low skilled people who feed the line and empty it again. The nostalgic notion of Craftsmanship is Mastery that applied to mts students, the middle section, you don't see that much anymore. There's almost no newcomers anymore, so we had to. Craftsmanship is in the machine with us.

'Energy consumption is 80% lower than traditional work. We make 1,000 different things here for 100 different customers. From parts and semi-finished products such as small suspension brackets to complete server enclosures, fans, parts for machines and locker cabinets for schools or cafeterias. You name it, we make it, in large numbers. The basis is always thin sheet material, that is the only similarity.'

Never waste a good crisis

'This is an excellent time to reflect on the future. We had quite a lot to deal with as entrepreneurs in recent years: corona, war, commodity prices, energy crisis, labor market tightness. As a result, many companies faced supply chain problems. A ship stuck in the Suez Canal and years later we are still short of chips. Large parties are at a complete standstill because they don't have two small elements. They are now asking themselves: why don't we produce closer to home? Then you have more grip and you are more flexible; there is no need for a container of parts to come from Asia first.'

Everything starts with the letter R

What is actually so urgent about the advent of Industry 5.0 according to Wido? High technology combined with sustainability: 'Everything is about preventing unnecessary waste. That's the simplest definition of circular as far as I'm concerned. That's the only way to make your company future-proof. The VANG principle is the basis of circular policy: From Waste to Resource. It prescribes that you have to separate waste at the source. We try to distinguish ourselves here with our waste bins of A-brand Lune. They are in the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum and the Stedelijk Museum, among others. People sometimes think for a moment that they belong to the collection, that's how beautiful they are. Sleek bamboo lid, sturdy housing made of recycled metal. You also see them at the airport: open bins with a few separate compartments to separate waste.

What makes Lune's products so smart and sustainable? A good example is the rise and fall of the plastic cup. That icon was one of the disposable options on our bins, identified by a "fraction" in a different color. Plastic cups are now not allowed at all. In the past, you would then have to discard such a bin in its entirety, because everything was inextricably welded or glued together. We now make them so that everything can be replaced with a small operation. We call it modular. Piece by piece individual parts of a durable quality, which you can effortlessly 'refurbish' and adapt. Screw on a new icon, new text, a different color opening and you're done. Lasts for years again. It fits perfectly with the 10 Rs of the circular economy: Recycle, Refurbish, Reuse, Reduce, Recover, Repurpose, Repair, Remanufacture, Refuse, Rethink. Do I have 10 like that? The higher you get on the R ladder, the lower the use of precious resources.'

'There is another characteristic of circular economy; that is the business model you come up with. We are now seeing a trend that use is becoming more important than possession. Why buy something when you can also rent or lease something inexpensively and easily? You see it in all sorts of areas: shared cars, for example. So we also do that when there is demand. We put the experiences at Lune into practice at Brink Industrial. I ask our salespeople to at least say something about circular economy in every sales meeting. Before that, they are not allowed to leave.'

Timing

So why isn't it landing with everyone yet, that participating in a healthy, circular economy? 'It was mostly unknown. That is starting to come out now. Drastic changes don't always work out. I can imagine, if your order book is nice and full, everything is running smoothly, that you hesitate to turn the switch. We have also experienced such a gut-wrenching moment. The day our very expensive autonomous production line was delivered was February 16, 2020. The most modern machine in the Benelux, it suddenly showed up on our doorstep in parts. The very day the corona pandemic reached the Netherlands. Fortunately, it all turned out well.

The financial incentive may start to help; you often compete with foreign countries on hourly rates. The lack of suitable skilled workers may also be the deciding factor. The attention for sustainability is really there; in government tenders it is already customary to require that you tell something about circularity. Houses with an unfavorable energy label sell less well. In business, you must first understand the urgency for the survival of your company. And oh yes, the earth! We cannot continue to exhaust it indefinitely. I look at the economic perspective; we are not a club with woolly socks. As an employer, I also have the responsibility that everyone has bread on the table at home. It's not a hobby, it's business for us.'

The most important lesson of all that entrepreneurship?

'You just have to do it. Just do it. That's what it says on my LinkedIn profile. There is only one thing to do: you have to work with it, with this circularity. It doesn't just walk in. First understand the theory and then just apply it. There was no other way. When I bought this company, we were underwater. We were running at a loss. You have the old farm wisdom: if you keep doing what you did, you'll get what you got. We decided not to discuss much or write endless project proposals, no, we just gave it a try. After all, one learns by doing. Learning by doing. It may sound silly, but you can learn to ride a bike on YouTube, but you'll still fall off your bike outside on the street. We would say jump on the saddle and learn how to keep your balance. We don't take any chances here, but neither are we a university research institute where you can take years on a quest before a decision is reached.

For our machines: deliberately the most advanced thing you can buy. You do have to make sure you have some basic knowledge. We found ourselves in a position where we could invest. Good for a huge leap in our development.' Surely it could have gone quite wrong? 'Yes, but that's business, isn't it?'