Howden Thomassen: Paving the Way for Ambitious Growth

Overview

Referring to it as an upgrade understates the comprehensive transformation we carried out with Howden Thomassen Compressors (HTC). With the implementation of an entirely new Autodesk environment, we prefer to speak of a transformation on an industrial scale. Lead Engineer Pim Meeuwsen and IT Landscape Programme Manager Robert van der Cruysen are pleased with the result, which supports the ambitious growth plans of Howden Thomassen Compressors.

Strong in Reciprocating Compressors

“Our company has grown by designing and manufacturing reciprocating compressors, primarily for the petrochemical and chemical process industries. Many of our clients are refineries, which use these compressors to pressurise hydrogen as part of their production processes—such as refining crude oil into various base materials and fuels. Since 2018, we’ve also specialised in diaphragm compressors. While reciprocating compressors are mainly used to pressurise large volumes of gas (up to around 300 bar), diaphragm compressors are ideal for applications that require smaller volumes of clean process gas or very high final pressures of up to 1000 bar.”

“Our market is changing—dramatically so. The primary driver is the energy transition, which involves moving away from fossil fuels toward cleaner energy sources. Within this shift, hydrogen is being positioned as the fuel of the future. As a result, we’re seeing an entirely new customer group emerging within the hydrogen sector. This requires a different market approach. While oil refining processes are highly customer-specific—and therefore demand tailored solutions—the hydrogen market shows a much greater need for standardised, series production. Supporting such a transformation requires a completely overhauled IT landscape.”

A Dual Challenge

“Our challenge is twofold. First, our ERP system, Isah 7.0, was outdated, and our headquarters decided to switch to Microsoft Dynamics 365FO. We had been using Isah 7.0 for nearly all of our business processes—from Engineering (PDM), Procurement, Document Management, Assembly, and Transport through to Finance. Over the years, we had also added many custom scripts to it. Transitioning from Isah 7.0 to MS D365FO was not feasible without major adjustments to our workflows and applications.”

“Given our growth ambitions, we decided to separate Engineering and Document Management from the ERP and migrate them into dedicated PDM and PLM applications. We want to use our ERP system for its intended purpose: managing procurement, administrative, and logistics processes. For engineering, we needed a tailored solution. We envisioned a new IT landscape with clearly structured PDM and PLM environments—Product Data Management and Product Lifecycle Management. Our internal fit-gap analysis and subsequent Proof of Concept with ARKANCE gave us clarity on our current situation and desired future state. Step one: we need to go back to the basics.”

Breaking New Ground

“ARKANCE was already our partner—supplying Autodesk software, but also custom solutions and other services. That’s an advantage, because they understand our market and systems. Still, our ambition for a new IT landscape was a complex, large-scale project for both of us. We started by collecting user stories (following the Agile working method), in which our engineers, document specialists, quality inspectors, and other experts shared what they need to do their work as effectively as possible.”

“After that, we worked with ARKANCE to define a clear vision for the future, along with the roadmap to get there. A key part of that is the implementation of Autodesk Fusion Manage, integrated with systems such as Microsoft Dynamics 365. We also delivered a new and efficient setup of Vault Pro, based on ARKANCE’s Vault Best Practice. Currently, we’re in the process of transitioning to Inventor Professional for full 3D engineering. In short, we’re laying the foundation together with ARKANCE to scale up and achieve our future business goals.”

Ready for the Future

“Our new IT landscape aligns perfectly with our ambitions for a hydrogen-powered future: we can now store and manage our product models much more effectively. This allows us to reuse them in future projects and tailor them to specific customer needs using Fusion Manage. Within our PLM environment, we can track each individual machine throughout its entire lifecycle—repairs, maintenance, modifications—we always have an up-to-date picture.”

“We’re shifting from engineering-to-order to configure-to-order. We've upgraded our standardisation from the detail level to the modular level, which allows us to respond much faster to customer requests. This also helps us reduce costs, save time, improve the quality of our output, and minimise the risk of errors. Of course, it took time to reach this point, but we are confident that we’ll more than earn back our investment in the long run.”

A Strong Partnership

“Even though ARKANCE and our team already knew each other well, this project still required a lot of trial and error. And like in any marriage, we didn’t always see eye to eye right away. There were even a few moments of friction. But by continuing the journey together, we were ultimately able to celebrate successes together as well. We broke the project down into phases, and we’re now completing them one by one.”

“As an international company and part of Chart Industries, we have multiple entities. Our new cloud-based IT environment now aligns much better with various international workflows, which benefits efficiency, cost control, and collaboration across the board. In this broader context too, we are now better prepared for the future.”