Willy Naessens

Willy Naessens started out as a modest entrepreneur in livestock farming and animal feed, but his determination and entrepreneurial drive turned him into the market leader in industrial construction in Belgium.

Today, the Willy Naessens Group employs more than 2,500 people. The group is built on three core values: vertical integration, diversification and human capital.

The “everything under one roof” principle keeps processes efficient, because the group carries out almost every step in-house. Diversification spreads risk by investing in sectors such as swimming pools and food. The group also invests heavily in its people, with opportunities for training, coaching and internal mobility, because employees are seen as the company’s greatest asset.

Willy Naessens Group was dealing with a growing fleet, which made it increasingly difficult for the planning managers to keep track of the vehicles.

The location of trailers and their expected arrival times were often unclear. On top of that, the HR department faced a huge job keeping track of hours worked and mobility allowances for staff out on the road. Processing all of that data by hand took a great deal of time, especially at the end of the month.

GeoDynamics solved this by installing a black box in more than 200 trailers and vans. Willy Naessens Group can now see where every vehicle is and how many kilometres it has driven, at any moment. That makes it far easier to respond quickly to new jobs and logistical challenges.

Time registration for workers was simplified as well, through the implementation of a badge reader. Every employee has a personal badge to record their start and finish times. Those times are sent to secure servers in real time and are immediately available in the GeoDynamics software. Because the software integrates with the Willy Naessens ERP system, the data is processed automatically, which saves a great deal of time.