What do you do with old safety shoes?

For years, Siemens has been making it easy to implement local safety applications quickly and efficiently - with SIRIUS 3SK. The 3SK safety relays offer maximum functionality while saving space in the control cabinet.

Eaton Bussmann® Series FWE high-speed fuses are an ideal choice for protecting a DC charging station of up to 400 kW. They support the CCS and CHAdeMO protocols for direct current (DC) charging of electric vehicles at fast chargers. The FWE fuses are compact and resistant to high temperatures, making them ideal for compact applications.

Step on the accelerator and win! Join the race with the SITOP PSU6200 power supply and experience how the matching SEL1200 selectivity module can put you in pole position.

With the acquisition of the Lightelec Group by the itsme Group, Belgian family-owned companies Breemes and Lightelec are merging their capabilities to form the number three in the Belgian electrotechnical wholesale market.

Technical services provider Breemes supplies customers with PLCs, drives and other materials. Customers like industrial automation company Digi-Flow. Turnover, both parties feel, is not the ultimate indicator of a good relationship. Coming up with solutions together and providing knowledge are equally important. Ultimately, Breemes has to make the customer’s life easier, Digi-Flow CEO Eric Decant believes. Antwerp-based Digi-Flow assists industrial companies in their transformation to smart industrial environments using industrial automation and digitalisation. The company is a spin-off from ESAS Automation in 2020. Solindus, now ESAS, had grown into a company with 2,000 employees after its founding in 2003 by Eric and Robert Decant. With Digi-Flow, they wanted to go back to small-scale entrepreneurship. Eric Decant is now the CEO of the company, which has 30-plus employees. ‘I’m still ambitious, but I don’t want to complete this kind of strenuous trajectory on such a large scale anymore.’ Meanwhile, he is grooming his son to take over the reins. This makes Digi-Flow a true family business, as reflected in its core values of co-creation, long-term vision, lifelong growth and personal.

Being able to shift gears quickly is crucial to the success of industrial automation projects. This refers not only to the delivery of components but also to decision-making. Short lines of communication are important here. That was the case in the project to control a washing line for plastic PET flakes, in which ATR Engineering and itsme teamed up closely. ‘The added value of our collaboration is being able to anticipate customer requests extremely quickly.’ Bringing ten years of experience in industrial automation to the table, Adrie van Triest started his own company in 2019. With a broad approach, ATR Engineering in Berkel-Enschot focuses on hardware and software engineering. ‘Our area of expertise is offering total solutions for industrial automation centred around the design of PLC controls. We will sit down with a customer to discuss pending automation issues and we will determine the needs and wishes for a project together in advance. We also offer flexible support for projects or commissioning.’ ATR Engineering is a small company currently employing four engineers from different disciplines. There is also a permanent ‘flexible shell’ of engineers and technicians available to help during peak periods.

Specialist in industrial refrigeration Top Cold Control carries out complete projects, and energy management cannot be missing from that these days. This starts with a lot of measuring. For a cold store in Amsterdam, itsme, in consultation with Top Cold Control and the customer, designed a solution to integrate energy measurement in the control system. Top Cold Control from Nieuwkuijk, specialised in industrial refrigeration technology, realises large projects for customers in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and, through them, elsewhere in the world. These include refrigeration and freezer systems for slaughterhouses, processing companies, cold stores and transport companies. Top Cold Control can handle all common refrigerants, but specialises in the use of the natural refrigerants ammonia (NH3) and carbon dioxide (CO2). For fast freezing, Top Cold Control supplies advanced, energy-efficient freezing tunnels. "The company stands out for its short lines of communication," says operations manager Arjan Maas. "We are always accessible and customers immediately get the right person on the line with us."

COVID-19 and global component scarcity threw the industry into a ‘perfect storm’. Industrial automator Dymotec and Breemes kept the phone lines constantly open to tackle the scarcity problem together with creativity and proactivity. Dymotec in Olen (B) focuses on industrial automation spanning a broad spectrum of industries, from food and pharma to logistics and metal. The company has been around for 30 years and joined the Jeco Energies Group in 2022. Dymotec now has some 50 employees and also has a flexible shell with technicians, programmers and project engineers. Ever since its establishment, the company from Kempen has had a relationship with (the predecessors of) Breemes.