Grip on the river, thanks to smart sensors
Not a formal tender, but real collaboration. That’s the core of the learning space Rijkswaterstaat created to bring innovations to life. Beeliners joined the table, turning a concrete groyne into a smart sensor and an assignment into a genuine partnership.
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We don’t work for you, but with you. That you way you will stay involved and can keep control over your idea. - Specialist at the ready
You will have direct contact with the specialists who work on realizing your idea. Spar directly with the right specialist. - Direct lines
Would you like adjustments to your idea? Due to the direct line of communication we can act quickly to make it happen. - The IP remains yours
The Intellectual Property (IP) is always yours. We are happy to help you take care of the paperwork.
Rijkswaterstaat
As part of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, Rijkswaterstaat operates as an executive agency. This means Rijkswaterstaat receives assignments from the ministry to carry out specific tasks, depending on government policy.
Yuri Wolf works within the Innovation and Market department, part of Procurement. His focus is on scaling up innovations and developing an approach that allows Rijkswaterstaat to procure them structurally in the future.
How the collaboration began
One of Rijkswaterstaat’s responsibilities is managing and maintaining waterways such as the IJssel and the Twente Canals. The guiding philosophy is preservation: the condition must never get worse, but it doesn’t need to get better either. This approach sparked the idea of exploring innovation within maintenance work.
To make that possible, Rijkswaterstaat created a learning space, a contractual space for experimentation where innovations for specific challenges are developed on equal footing. This is what made it possible for Beeliners to join the experiment. Beeliners had submitted a sensor based innovation to Rijkswaterstaat’s innovation desk. At the time, Yuri Wolf was working on the flexible groynes project and immediately saw the connection. He invited Beeliners to talk further.
The collaboration in practice
Multiple parties, including Beeliners, were involved in the flexible groynes project. Beeliners was responsible for the complete monitoring solution for the groyne: hardware, software, cloud solutions, smart technology, industrial design, and prototyping. The main collaboration here was with Deltares, whose core task was monitoring and collecting data, drawing on their knowledge and expertise.
Every two weeks, meetings were scheduled with all involved parties, following a sprint based approach. Yuri was responsible for taking minutes and tracking action points. Documents and action points were shared through an online environment, so everyone always had access to the latest developments.
Project – Flexible groyne
How Beeliners made the flexible groyne ‘smart’ with sensor technology, from hardware to dashboard
Yuri Wolf, Innovation Manager River Management, on the collaboration that led to a follow up with Rijkswaterstaat
“Within the learning spaces, getting Beeliners to come in and share something about sensors has been a gold rush. All these experiences will be taken back to subsequent projects, because again sensors are needed.
In our follow-up project, Beeliners is participating again. Our next project is again about hydraulic engineering. The question is whether the original idea of autarkic sensors will work there. Can something be invented where we don’t need a power supply? The disadvantage of current sensors is that they require a hugely long power cable. This is a great exploration for the future.
I would describe the collaboration with Beeliners as ‘nice and flat’, ‘just act normal’. There was a shared grief in getting and bringing knowledge and expertise, but also in creating ownership with money, commitment and co-writing and collaborating on the project. My job is to keep all parties involved and avoid forgetting them. In the past, Rijkswaterstaat mainly dealt with contractors, little with suppliers. This was an innovation in our way of working. Now we know that working with suppliers is more important thanks to the knowledge and expertise they bring with them.”
“Together we make your idea reality.”
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