Dijkstra Plastics continues to innovate and automate
19 September 2025
At our production sites in both Haaksbergen and Almelo, it is essential that we keep moving forward and remain pioneering in our processes. A high-tech production environment ensures greater precision and efficiency and it is an inspiring environment to work in.
We are proud to share that we continuously invest in making our entire process more sustainable. That may sound a bit abstract, which is why we would like to take you behind the scenes to show you some of our latest developments and how we are making the journey to your packaging buckets even smoother.
More sustainable production with an optimized palletizing unit and smart AGVs
In our production environment, our new AGV system, featuring compact self-driving pallet trucks. is now running in test mode. These intelligent vehicles automatically collect buckets and transport them to our palletizing unit without any human intervention. Recently, an electrostatic discharge (ESD) floor was installed, which means this advanced system will soon be fully operational.
Our older, larger self-driving pallet trucks (Frog pallet AGVs) will soon be retired and replaced by high tech Wewo pallet AGVs. These will work closely together with the MSK machines at both production sites.
New MSK packaging machines
In Haaksbergen, we are still using an MSK shrink-hood machine. In Almelo, we are receiving a brand-new MSK stretch-hood machine in the coming weeks, which will be put into operation after extensive testing. Over time, the machine in Haaksbergen will also be replaced with a stretch-hood version. This means we are gradually transitioning to a different type of pallet wrapping across all our pallets. For our customers, this will mean little change apart from a slightly different appearance.
What are the advantages of stretch hoods?
Stretch hoods are more environmentally friendly because they do not require gas heating. This leads to significant savings in energy consumption and CO₂ emissions. In addition, stretch hoods are much thinner than shrink hoods, meaning less packaging material is used.
In the past, stretch hoodswere not technically suitable for use in our MSK unit. Thanks to recent product improvements, however, we can now deploy them effectively within our production processes.
Integrated handles
Despite the high level of automation, some manual work is still required in our production process for example, attaching handles to certain buckets. This is a time-consuming task, especially when thousands of handles are involved. It typically concerns bucket models for which no suitable automatic handle applicator is available. (For several years, we have had a number of lines that do use handle applicators, which reduces manual work but still adds extra steps to the process.)
To make this process even more efficient, we have recently invested in several injection molding machines that mold the handle directly onto the bucket during production. This not only eliminates an additional step but also frees up space in the factory for other machines. Thanks to this innovation, machines can take over repetitive tasks from our employees allowing them to focus on other parts of the production process.
Upgraded camera control systems
As mentioned above, our production staff play an indispensable role in our manufacturing process. They are the human eye that carefully oversees our products until they are shipped.
Many of our machines are already equipped with camera control systems that digitally inspect our IML-labeled buckets. These systems are now being upgraded to a more advanced and user-friendly version. This will make quality inspections during production even more precise ensuring that we deliver an even higher quality of products.
Insight into our optimizations
With this behind-the-scenes look, we hope to give you a clear picture of the optimizations we are working on every day. We are proud of the improvements we are achieving each one a step toward a more efficient process and an even better connection between production and customer.
