Strocon complies with environmental legislation through real-time machine insights

Stricter environmental legislation requires ever more data and proof that installations continuously meet standards. But if an environmental inspector unexpectedly requests data, you don't want to spend hours searching, filtering, and reporting first. Strocon makes this information immediately visible with real-time data, automated reporting and remote access.

Strocon develops high-quality installations for processing residual streams and recovering valuable raw materials. Such as from potatoes, packaged foods or other organic products.

For both their Agro and Industrial divisions, Strocon uses IXON’s Service Portal Cloud as a central platform for remote access, monitoring, and service. This case study focuses on Agro.

We deliver not just a machine, but the assurance that it will continue to perform optimally.

- Dennis van Braak, Senior Lead Software Engineer

Challenge

Within the agricultural sector, Strocon supplies, among other things, air scrubbers and nitrogen strippers. These installations play a crucial role in reducing nitrogen emissions and must continuously and demonstrably comply with strict laws and regulations in the Netherlands and Belgium. This means that the installations must not only function properly but also be able to demonstrate this to environmental agencies at any time.

To this end, the installations continuously record important process data, such as air pressure, pressure differences, acid consumption, EC value (conductivity), power consumption, and pump operating hours. This data forms the basis for the mandatory reports that enable customers to demonstrate that their installation operates within the applicable environmental standards.

^{Strocon's nitrogen stripper}

The challenge, however, lay not in collecting the data, but in making it available. Because the installations register data every five minutes, an enormous amount of information was generated that had to be manually filtered, merged, and processed for every report. When an environmental inspector unexpectedly requested the data, or showed up on the doorstep it took a lot of time to gather the right information and convert it into the reporting format where the environmental service at early.

As a result, not only were end customers regularly faced with a time-consuming administrative task, but Strocon was also frequently called upon to quickly retrieve the right data or compile reports. There was a lack of a simple way to provide real-time insight and have the requested information available immediately when needed.

Solution

With the IXON Service Portal, Strocon has created one central platform for data organization, machine insights, and compliance. Via Machine Insights Cloud is all critical process data available in real-time, giving both Strocon and the end customer immediate insight into the performance of the installation and enabling them to demonstrate that it operates within the standards.

With live data, historical insights and automated reports, emission and process data are made easily available to environmental services, causing manual reporting to largely disappear.
In addition, remote access enables rapid remote support and troubleshooting, while environmental services can also directly view the current process data if necessary.

Via the customer portal, customers have direct access to the same information. This enables self-service, increases customer autonomy, and provides continuous insight and assurance that the installation is performing optimally.

Finally, the integrated documentation environment provides direct access to all relevant manuals and service information.

You just need to this!

- Dennis van Braak, Senior Lead Software Engineer

^{Strocon's Biofilter air scrubber}

Result

Thanks to the efforts of IXON, Strocon has the serviceServices to agricultural customers have become highly professionalized.

Conclusion

For Strocon, digitalization is not a separate add-on, but has become an essential part of its service offering. In the agricultural sector, the combination of real-time data, remote access, and central monitoring helps support clients with increasingly complex regulations.

With IXON’s Service Portal Cloud, Strocon offers not only machines, but a complete premium service that ensures installations remain demonstrably compliant and continuously run and perform optimally.