Polyvantis rebuilds all systems after becoming independent

Polyvantis makes plastic sheets and films. In Bergen op Zoom, the lines produce LEXAN: sheets made of polycarbonate, a transparent plastic that can take a serious impact and is therefore used where glass would break. Think of protective machine guards, canopies and bus shelters. In thin film form, the same material is used in identity cards and aircraft interiors, among other applications. The company also carries the PLEXIGLAS brand for acrylic.

When the site was separated from its parent company, more than just the name changed. Systems that had been part of a larger whole for years suddenly had to stand on their own, including the complete control of the plant. From February 2025, Batenburg Industrial Automation guided the OT migration at this site and advised on the new IT infrastructure. It was part of a programme that ran at all Polyvantis sites worldwide.

Starting over, with the production schedule as the clock

The task was clear and uncomfortable at the same time: rebuild everything, while getting the plant running again as quickly as possible. "All production systems had to be set up again, and under heavy time pressure," says Nicolas De Pooter, General Manager Belgium at Batenburg. The customer felt the same way. "What made it urgent for us was that production had to restart as quickly as possible," says Peter Hagenaars, Lead Engineering & Maintenance at Polyvantis. "And as an independent company, we had to rebuild all our systems."

An installation without a manual

What made this project technically challenging was not its size but the lack of documentation. For large parts of the existing installation, hardly anything had been recorded. The migration still stayed on schedule because the knowledge was already there: our colleagues have worked at this site for years and knew the systems inside out. "Our added value in this project was mainly that our colleagues have years of experience, which allowed us to gather all the information we needed," says Olivier Verhaegen, Application Engineer at Batenburg. That combination of process knowledge and software is at the heart of our industrial automation.

At the same table every day

To be able to act quickly, the team worked on site every day, in the same office as the colleagues who already knew the installation. Questions could be asked and answered on the spot, instead of through a ticket waiting in a queue. "Thanks to direct communication, problems were solved as quickly as possible," says Hagenaars. Step by step, production was restored. It required close coordination between Polyvantis, the IT partner and Batenburg, on matters such as planning, mapping the existing infrastructure and getting the licences in place. It was precisely the combination of OT and IT knowledge that this project required.

Insight into the performance of every line

After the migration came the logical next question: how is the plant actually performing? For this, Batenburg delivered a web-based OEE dashboard built in Grafana. It shows at a glance how an installation is running, without anyone having to pull data from separate systems. The dashboard gives Polyvantis the management information it needs to make targeted improvements.

From necessity to long-term partnership

"Production is running on our own systems again," says Hagenaars. What started as a move to independence has grown into a long-term partnership: Polyvantis stands on its own two feet, with 24/7 support from Batenburg in the background and ongoing projects at the site. A project that began under time pressure ended in an environment the company controls itself.

For more information about this project, please contact Nicolas De Pooter, General Manager Belgium, on +32 3 380 08 80 or at nicolas.de.pooter@batenburg.com.

Curious about the project? Watch the video below.