Sven Hebbelinck

Several years ago, we launched a competition for a framework contract for a number of engineering assignments. There were 4 candidates and the contract was awarded to Ingenium in early 2018.

"What played a part in our choice was Ingenium's emphasis on quality assurance, both in the designs they produce and in monitoring budgets. But what stood out even more was the attention paid to the final phase of a project, what we call commissioning. It is often treated as a kind of poor relation by an engineering office that passes problems on to the client. For us, it is important that the engineering office, together with us and the contractor, checks through tests whether everything is executed as designed and works as foreseen in the plans. The fact that Ingenium has a separate team for commissioning gives us that assurance."

We have already tackled several projects together with Ingenium in those 3 years. In our power plant, we had to do a reconciliation between our CHP and the boilers, and then the whole process downstream of that with various substations. We also installed a new domestic hot water plant and a new cooling plant on our bed house. Ingenium also assisted us in the supervision and follow-up of a project for the pharmacy department, which was worked out by a foreign engineering firm. A number of conversion and renovation projects are underway, on the one hand for various laboratories and on the other for a new unit for gastro-endoscopy. And we are renovating the refrigeration of our outpatient clinic.

It's mostly about overall assignments. For each project, we know in broad outline where we want to go. Ingenium then helps us to elaborate and engineer this conceptually. Tender dossiers are then drawn up to have the works carried out by our house contractors or to award them through public contracts. The execution of the works is followed up and at the end there is that commissioning. For us, it is important that Ingenium understands where we want to go. This is not always easy, because there is never just one solution to a technical problem. My own engineers and experts also have their ideas, and ideas can sometimes clash. But we have to watch over the overall picture of techniques on the site, today and in the future.

"Ingenium has to work out the partial aspects, thinking along critically and being creative. Sensing that, to shape their ideas and then develop them further in our direction, they are very good at that."

The fact that we operate in a very flexible environment is not always easy for external parties. Constantly gaining new insights and regularly changing your mind is commonplace in our sector. Our clients are medics, not technicians. They sometimes think that everything is possible, and that you can come up with a completely different opinion even at the last minute. The corona crisis puts that even more at risk. While a consulting firm often wants you to explain everything well first, after which they crawl behind their drawing board and return a few months later with the solution. But by then it may already be outdated.

"By now, Ingenium knows our industry well enough to deal with this great flexibility. They certainly don't bother when they need to respond quickly to changes."

We obviously work with various Ingenium employees, because our numerous projects have different project managers. I get positive comments about the cooperation from everyone at our company. It goes smoothly, Ingenium is well organized and always keeps its promises. They also tell me that 'the click' is there, that we are on the same wavelength and work together towards the same goal. The people of Ingenium do not beat around the bush. They take the bull by the horns and act to the point. That is what we want and expect.