Floris Ruiterkamp works for the Animal Health Service and acts as intermediary between IT and the business, for the poultry and pigs departments. A special role within the Animal Health Service because most of their employees are only expert in one of the disciplines..
Floris is close to the business and together with colleagues he devises applications for poultry and pigs. In fact, Floris comes from a family of poultry farmers. He studied business administration and marketing and consumer behavior at Wageningen university in the Netherlands.
The choice for a career in IT combined with the agricultural business was a conscious one. The connection with the subject matter is important to Floris. When he started work at the Animal Health Service in 2006, Floris was immediately involved in developing applications for monitoring the poultry sector in the Netherlands. In recent years, developments have been initiated to provide additional services to the larger players in the chain. On the one hand as certification partner, and on the other as information provider.
Collaboration with Agri Information Partners is going well. We have an open relationship. The big advantage of working with people from AIP is that they know how the sector works. And besides, AIP has a pool of good quality IT staff. In our projects, knowledge of animal health and IT are combined well. An AIP person asks the right questions and also indicates when an idea is not technically feasible to realize. This is very much appreciated in the collaboration. Thinking along with business solutions with a healthy dose of common sense. This positive critical attitude combined with sector knowledge means that Floris enjoys working with the people from AIP.
The big advantage of working with people from AIP is that they know how the sector works
At the moment, Plexus is the most eye-catching project. Floris calls Plexus an ERP system for animal health. It is a unique system in which the focus lies on monitoring animal health. This requires a completely different approach than managing on number of eggs per hen or on feed conversion, as other automation systems for intensive livestock farming do.
In the Plexus project Floris has worked together with a team consisting of Chris for the user interface design, Rins for the functions and Joey who adds the ‘trendy things’. A team of people with AIP DNA leads to successful collaboration resulting in good and effective systems being developed. For instance, Floris has been working with Rins, an all-round IT specialist at AIP, for many years. And according to Floris, Rins is incredibly effective at developing reliable software.
A team of people with AIP DNA leads to successful collaboration resulting in good and effective systems being developed
Besides this operational cooperation in the projects, Floris also appreciates the fact that AIP provides strategic input. Sessions with Mark, Gert-Jan and Ad result in fruitful discussions where everyone is open and can be critical to the others if need be. This makes ideas and concepts stronger and therefore ultimately more successful. Cross-pollination based on experience with the certification world or seed breeding also contributes to this.
Meeting deadlines and completing projects within budget is the rule and not the exception. This is not just because the project manager manages with a tight rein, it’s the work of the whole team
Floris mentions the project reliability as a very distinctive point. Meeting deadlines and completing projects within budget is the rule and not the exception. This is not just because the project manager manages with a tight rein, it’s the work of the whole team. And you can rely on Rins telling everyone if something is taking more time than estimated; then we look critically for another solution. Together we can achieve great results that we are proud of as a team.
It’s great to see one of our major clients expressing their appreciation for our people and our company.
Besides custom software, Agri Information Partners also supplies plant breeding management software and software for managing varieties.
