Industrial Automation

Intrion:atypical system integrator

Being able to respond to high-demand markets

Some companies stand out from others by their atypical character. Take intrion for

instance – a thoroughbred system integrator. Set up at the beginning of the 1980s by

supermarket chain Colruyt to assist internal automation, the automation specialist from

Huizingen has grown to become an independent integrator focussing on the food and

pharmaceutical industries. It has its own individual approach, where the software division

is the driving force behind each project.

The story of intrion’s birth is a nice one. Supermarket chain Colruyt set up two

engineering firms at the start of the 1980s. Dolmen Automation and Dolmen Industrial

Projects were to take care of automation in the distribution centres and production

divisions. Both firms very soon built up a great deal of know-how in various forms of

automation: for production, end-of-line packaging projects, palletizing, stocking, internal

transport, sorting, sequencing, order picking and collecting ... even for automated

express services for parcels.

Internal know-how soon found its way to external clients in various sectors of industry.

Both engineering firms continued to grow, ultimately merging in 2008 to become intrion.

Because its activities continued to extend further and further into fields other than retail,

the scenario of leaving the Colruyt Group began to appear on the horizon. Finally, there

was a management buy-out on 1 April 2012 and intrion was on its own, together with

its 120 employees, its suppliers and its customers, which included famous names in the

retail, food & beverage and pharmaceutical industries.

Market-driven automation

intrion focuses on three types of automation: end-of-line (inline checks, picking, packing

and palletizing), logistics (transport, storage, sorting & sequencing, order picking …) and

express parcels. Here, the guiding principle is always the customer’s marketing needs –

certainly not the easiest path to follow. Today it might be 4+1 free, tomorrow 20% extra,

the day after tomorrow a different packaging: marketing campaigns have a major influence

on handling, packaging, transport etc. What’s more, the changes can happen very fast.

In short: quite a challenge to develop automation that responds without problems to such

last-minute changes without lengthening the time to market.

Brain, Control, Action …

In order to develop flexible solutions, intrion must first and foremost know what the

customer wants. So listening is the message. After that, the most important internal

process starts: the brainwork. With, among other things, an inventory of all the worldwide

technologies and systems that could contribute to the optimum solution. The installations

are integrated together with original designs into a total solution. This is a process that

is not as usual based on mechanical engineering: at intrion, each project starts from the

software department. First Brains (software department), then Control (PLC department)

and only at the last stage, Action (electro-hardware department).

Maximum flexibility

This way of working has a big advantage: by integrating and ordering the hardware only

at the end, intrion can adapt the construction to the customer’s wishes and marketing

needs right up to the last minute. In a world where companies have to respond quickly to

developments, changes, new consumer demands and so on, that is not a needless luxury.

Since intrion often integrates the latest technologies, they regularly work with a proof of

concept with the customer.

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Industrial Automation

Responding to high-demand markets

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Good communication

In a company where the software department controls

the entire process, it is perfectly logical that everything

stands or falls with a good functional analysis of the

automation solution. This document is constructed

functionally and, especially, written comprehensibly. In

this way, the customer – even if he is perhaps not so

technically-minded – can still have a transparent view of

all the specifications of the automation. The functional

document goes through stages internally at intrion. From

the software department it goes to the PLC department,

which establishes the link to controlling and thus

establishes the activators-sensors. The electro-hardware

department completes the document, so that the plans

can really be generated at the last minute.

Functional analysesas a guideline

EPLAN as catalyst

Naturally, a system integrator that responds so flexibly to

the wishes of its customers, needs flexible tools. In the

past, intrion used to waste a great deal of time on the

hardware engineering through unnecessary manual and

repetitive operations. For this reason the system integrator

searched for a software program that could generate

plans from a database. EPLAN Electric P8 and the

EPLAN plan-generation technology provided the answer.

Thanks to EPLAN, intrion is now able to reduce the time

spent on hardware engineering by 20 to 30%. 70% of all

plans are now generated automatically. The objective is

to do even better – with further standardisation, among

other things.

Industrial Automation

Permanent assistance assured

Connection with the market

Another reason for choosing EPLAN was to be found in the market itself. intrion realised that increasing numbers of

suppliers, partner firms and customers were working with EPLAN and were standardising their documentation and plans

using EPLAN. So it was a logical step to integrate EPLAN into internal processes – certainly when it appeared that both

the software and the organisation of EPLAN were capable of growing flexibly along with the market. A high-demand

market that requires you to continuously get extra performance out of your tools. This is why intrion invests a great deal in

EPLAN training courses for its engineers, so that they can continue to maximise their knowledge.

Towards well-thought-out i-care

EPLAN also plays a role in intrion’s fifth department: support. intrion provides automation from end-of-line up to and

including logistics. A unique combination that brings with it high-tech solutions. This is why there was a demand from the

market to provide maintenance for the installations in addition to their construction. This saw the birth of i-care, whereby

intrion offers support worldwide 24/7 … remote or in-house. In order to provide this service and keep downtimes with

their customers to a minimum, there was a need for transparent, high-quality documentation. Here too, EPLAN offers a

solution. An extra trump card to keep the high-demand markets happy.

Find out more about Intrion at www.intrion.com05

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EPLAN Software & Service

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EPLAN Software & Service

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