How Van Nieuwpoort Group embarked on a digitalisation journey with Yitch and Novotek

A century of construction
with a solid foundation

Van Nieuwpoort Group, a Dutch family-owned leader in construction materials, has spent over a century building the foundation of the built environment in the Netherlands and Belgium. With operations ranging from sustainable raw material extraction to concrete and EPS production, the company is no stranger to complexity. As production environments grew more complex, Van Nieuwpoort saw a new opportunity: improve traceability, data integration and operational control. The company turned to trusted technology partners Yitch and Novotek to lead a transformation that would connect every step in the process, from raw input to final delivery.

Project 1:
Digital precision from block to batch

At the Goor site, Van Nieuwpoort produces expanded polystyrene blocks used throughout the construction sector. While the physical process was robust, tracking and traceability were lacking. Yitch stepped in to integrate a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) that would bring full control and visibility to the floor.

Working with Novotek’s GE Vernova platform, Yitch tailored the system to the site’s needs, mapping all production steps and ensuring the MES communicated with existing infrastructure.

But one key challenge remained: traceability. “How do you trace a piece of polystyrene through every phase of production?” recalls Gijs Beneken, Technical Expert at Yitch. The breakthrough came with the use of 3D QR codes, etched directly into each block. “It’s a clever way to link digital data to a physical product,” adds Dennis van Aalst of Van Nieuwpoort. “It gives us full insight, not just into what goes in and out, but how each block moves through the process. That improves traceability, planning and even cost control.”

Project 2:

Connecting data from ship to shore

The Kaliwaal 41 is a remarkable piece of engineering: a floating sand classification unit capable of producing over 140 sand compositions, built in-house by Van Nieuwpoort. Operating near Maaspark Well, it supports the large-scale river widening project while supplying high-quality industrial sand.

However, despite the ship’s advanced technical systems, its data was disconnected from Van Nieuwpoort’s enterprise environment. Operational data remained on board, making real-time decision-making and reporting difficult.

Yitch was brought in to digitise and integrate these operations, aligning them with Van Nieuwpoort’s central business systems. The team engineered a real-time interface that captured data from the vessel’s control systems and linked it directly to production planning. “You’re not just dealing with several machines here, but rather with one massive fully-integrated, moving process,” says Beneken. “We made it possible to structure that complexity digitally, giving context to the data based on actual production orders.”

Novotek’s Technical Manager Martien Heeren describes the transformation: “What used to be an administrative burden is now a seamless data flow. Operational events on the Kaliwaal are processed just like any land-based order, fully integrated with the company’s digital infrastructure.”

A seamless digital transformation

By integrating GE Vernova’s MES software with Van Nieuwpoort’s complex production environments, Yitch and Novotek delivered a future-proof digital backbone, from EPS blocks in Goor to real-time data streams on the Kaliwaal. “From start to finish, every step is now traceable and connected,” says Martien Heeren of Novotek. With the partnership betwee Yitch and Novotek as the driving force behind integration, the result is one unified system, with less manual work, more insight, and full control over operations on both land and water.