Menno Holterman: Celebrating Nijhuis’ 120 years and the need for decentralised design thinking

Menno Holterman remains bullish on the need for a system redesign when it comes to procurement and project delivery.

The CEO of Nijhuis Saur Industries (NSI) believes that with many clients demanding solutions to be supplied "yesterday", there is an urgent need for the water sector to become more agile to deliver immediate services.

"We all need to work in a different way, and apply the modular approach-thinking pioneered for industrial water applications across to the utility space," he says.

The Future is Water

Nijhuis recently celebrated its 120 Year Anniversary, with a milestone event on the theme 'The Future is Water'. Commenting on this theme, Holterman believes that water still to this day remains undervalued, despite being a key connector.

"The water sector is lagging behind the energy, waste and health transitions," he says. "Water connects and acts as a lubricant for all major transitions, yet many fail to grasp the interdependencies between water, energy, food, waste and health. As a business, we are zooming in on these transitions."

'The Future is Water' was chosen to deliberately provoke thinking about the crucial role of water. Holterman noted the World Economic Forum's recent 'Global Risks Report', with water-related threats moving down the list and misinformation and disinformation and extreme weather events remaining a top short-term risk.

"Without water, it's going to be difficult to meet the challenging requirements of the top global risks," the CEO added.

Understanding Nijhuis's past, to help predict the future

In order to understand the future direction of the business, it's worth reflecting on its past.

Starting life in 1904 in the rural area of Winterswijk, a small local machine shop was established under the pioneering leadership of Gerrit Jan Nijhuis. First equipping the local abattoir with state-of-the-art slaughtering technology, the company then set up a new department for the repair, design and manufacture of Nijhuis pumps. And then over the next 80 years, the company evolved.

In the 1960s a new chapter began due to increasing demand for wastewater treatment in slaughterhouses driven by the implementation of regulations. Fast forward to the mid-1980s and Nijhuis Pumps was completely separated, resulting in Nijhuis Water and Nijhuis Slaughter Technique operating as independent companies.

A big jump forward to 2020 and French industrial company SAUR, a portfolio company of EQT, acquired Nijhuis Industries, with the ambition to become an international leading player in the industrial water business. Since then, the company has made a rapid list of 18 notable acquisitions as part of its growth strategy, including ceramic membrane company PWNT, Cirtec, Flootech, Sodai and SUEZ Industrial Water UK and Veolia's mobile water systems.

Life under SAUR ownership

Reflecting on the last five years since the SAUR acquisition, Holterman remains proud that the company has evolved from a "systems seller", as he calls it, through to a "full service company and solution provider". As a simple data point, it has gone from having several operation and maintenance (O&M) contracts, through to having 700 and is today Europe's largest mobile water solutions provider.

"We are very honoured that SAUR has given us the trust and confidence to invest significantly also into geographical and technology portfolio expansion, as well as supporting us in implementing our customer for life approach and expanding and strengthening our delivery capabilities by becoming one integrated platform," adds the CEO.

Part of the renewed mission of NSI is to deliver "water on demand" and help customers "restore or close the natural water loop". This is part of the 4R strategy (reduce, remove, reuse and recover) and going beyond the traditional 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle).

"NSI seeks to educate the world that water does not need to be of the highest quality for all applications, for example using recycled wastewater for non-potable uses such as cooling or irrigation."

Decentralised design (re)thinking

The NSI CEO believes that the modular, decentralised solution offering is one of the ways forward. Rather than default to large scale centralised infrastructure and networks "often losing 30 per cent of water through non-revenue water (NRW)", Holterman advocates for decentralised alternatives.

Often scalable, quicker and more flexible, such solutions can meet industrial and utility demands when there is an urgent need for water. "We need to redesign our strategy to be more modular and scalable in the approach," he adds. "Such approaches, including rental and hybrid solutions are key to reducing costs and implementation times, which are also an area that needs innovation."

Furthermore, such approaches can also tap into more accessible OPEX (operational) capital, rather than traditional CAPEX (capital expenditure) budgets.

Learning from the offshore oil and gas, and also shipping industry, NSI is currently investing heavily in expanding its manufacturing capacity in the Netherlands. The ambition is to reduce the construction time onsite by handling this ahead of time at the NSI's own factory. Modular and almost completed water systems can then be delivered to start operating more quickly, thereby reducing onsite risks, construction and associated costs.

Holterman also believes more efficient business models, built on "integrated thinking and new design rules" is where there's space for further innovation to significantly shorten the traditional process from opportunity development, permitting, decision making, project design and delivery up to operations and maintenance.

Hampton Loade project in the UK

Clearly the agility from the innovative business model approach seen within industrial water projects could also benefit more traditional utility markets. The CEO cites a recent UK project as one such example.

The upgraded Hampton Loade water treatment works, operated by UK utility South Staffs Water, produces 210,000 m3/day, serving 700,000 customers. As part of a £55 million rebuilding and refurbishment project, a ceramic membrane-based water-filtration system was provided using technology provided by PWNT. The build time was reduced from a planned four years down to a remarkable two and a bit.

"We were able to reduce the traditional manufacturing and construction time on the Hampton Loade project, showcasing that innovation goes beyond the technology but also procurement, construction and system delivery," the CEO says proudly.

Unconventional water sources and looking ahead

The impacts from climate change are well known on the water industry. From drier, hotter and more scare summers through to wetter, heavier winters. Holterman believes that unconventional water sources including sea and surface water will soon start becoming conventional, out of sheer necessity.

As a result, NSI is supporting and educating its clients around the globe on the need for unconventional sources, including re-using processed (waste)water into drinking water.

"I think everybody is starting to realise now that just relying on natural water supply through wells and aquifers is unsustainable and will not provide sufficient water to the growing needs," he says.

Another concern of the CEO is the increased global competition for jobs, with other transitioning sectors such as energy quite literally "buying up the talent in water". As a result, he adds that there is a need for the water sector to raise its profile to be a key voice in the larger global transitions and give water the value it deserves as part of the company's '#MissionWater' philosophy.

It's clear that innovation and diversification along the way were key to Nijhuis reaching the 120 year milestone. Looking ahead, Holterman's vision of embracing modular decentralised solutions, along with innovative business models will be crucial for reaching the next level and bringing the rest of the market along with it.

Nijhuis Saur Industries (NSI) will be participating in this year's Aquatech Amsterdam, taking place on March 10-14th in Amsterdam. The company can be found on booth 12.402. Want to know more?