Software engineer turned business manager

After having worked as a software engineer for several years, Arnold Schutter picked up the role of business manager at Alten. His workweek reveals a diversity of activities, such as business development, people management and technology.

Arnold Schutter

Monday

After checking my mailbox, my workweek traditionally starts with a team meeting of our unit. During this meeting, we discuss all activities of the past and coming week. We go through client appointments, the status of current projects but also the candidates who’ll be interviewed later this week. We discuss the outstanding requests from our clients and how we can offer the best solution. This meeting takes up the entire Monday morning.

I take my lunch at the office, after which I leave to meet a department manager at my client TNO. This department is working on a setup to test the effects of ammunition on vehicles and materials. During this meeting, we try to find the overlap in our expertise. With my background both in the army and as a software engineer, I understand the customer’s challenge and we can exchange interesting ideas about how we can support each other.

After this interview at TNO, I return to our office, where I have a coaching interview with one of the consultants from my team. The project she’s working on is going well, but she notices that she has too little experience with Qt. After discussing the option of a training course, we decide that it’s best to link her to a more experienced software engineer for coaching. Because we have more than 500 software consultants at Alten in the Netherlands, there’s always somebody with the required expertise.

Tuesday

Today, I’m going to Shell for a qualification interview with a consultant from my team. This qualification interview is a ‘job interview’ for the role of a scientific software engineer on one of the projects at the customer. The consultant from my team holds a master’s degree in physics from Delft University of Technology and has recently completed our Software Engineering Masterclass. During an intensive program of three months, his software engineering skills have developed to a good level. The project manager at Shell conducts the interview and I’m mainly listening. After the conversation, we drive to the office together and do a debriefing. Later in the week, I hear my consultant can start on the new project in a month.

After answering several phone calls and emails, I leave for an introductory meeting with a potential new client, a robot builder. I came in touch with this company during a college fair. They build robots for entire process chains (from supply to handling and packing). The purpose of my visit is to explore the possibilities for collaboration. I have a conversation with the project leader and we exchange experiences to explore each other’s competencies. To get a good impression of their challenges, I’m also taken on a tour of the factory. Impressive to see how the entire chain of robots is assembled and tested, in no less than 1,000 movements. We notice a lot of overlap in our skills and we agree to stay in touch so we can easily provide support when needed.

Wednesday

Today, I’m mainly working at the office. First, I visit our Delivery Center, where we work on various projects. I talk to the project leader about one of our machine learning projects, in which we train an algorithm that can recognize weeds. Next, I have a progress meeting with a consultant from my team, who’s working on this algorithm. We discuss the progress of the project and the technical challenges.

Subsequently, I have an interview with an applicant. In this interview, I need to form an opinion about her skills and suitability for Alten. With a software test and discussion, I first get a good idea of her technical skills. During the rest of the interview, I investigate whether she could be a good consultant. She turns out to be a suitable candidate and shortly after, I make her an offer.

In the afternoon, I visit a customer active in product automation. This company faces several challenges in its software development processes. I have a detailed conversation with the manager about his issues. We

Arnold Schutter

Arnold Schutter studied computer science at Delft University of Technology and graduated in a project at Alten, where he subsequently started his career as a software engineer. After having worked for several years on various software projects, he felt the need to be in touch more extensively with hightech companies. Therefore, after following a traineeship at Alten, he picked up the role of business manager in 2018.

discuss ways he could deal with them and I suggest he talks with one of our engineers experienced in software processes. In addition to coaching, we discuss ideas for improvement.

Thursday

This morning, I visit a company that develops a very innovative way of transport. It’s a first meeting in which I also get to see the factory hall, where the prototype is being assembled. It’s nice to be at the cradle of the latest developments. For the next phase of the project, they could use our specific expertise and I’m looking forward to a collaboration. At the end of the morning, I leave for our office through the beautiful countryside.

In the afternoon, I visit one of my clients, where we are working on the control of a very advanced heavylift crane that’s custombuilt for one ship. We discuss the progress of the project and find out that they could benefit from user experience (UX) knowledge to improve their frontend design and development. He asks me if I have a solution and we discuss some details. While returning to the office, I immediately start thinking who would be able to help out with this problem – knowledge of specific tools and software are required. After consulting some colleagues, I think I have a nice solution and send my proposal to the client.

I’m staying at the office tonight to attend an event. Together with about 25 colleagues, we have a dinner buffet, followed by a presentation of two consultants about frontend development and utilizing microservices. After a very interesting presentation, we end the evening with a drink.

Friday

Together with the Royal Netherlands Aerospace Centre (NLR), we’re organizing a symposium on the use of the cloud and the related security aspects. We came up with this idea during an earlier meeting. This morning, together with my colleague Nicolle, I go to NLR to discuss the details. Part of the symposium are presentations and a panel discussion. We, together with the Dutch Air Force and FoxIT, compose a program to dive deeper into the safety and risks of the cloud.

The afternoon I spend on administrative tasks, answering emails and various phone calls. We traditionally end the week with a drink and this time, we do that a bit more extensively, with a Frenchfries table. We decide to go out with some colleagues in the center of Rotterdam. Just before we leave, I get a call from the candidate I spoke to on Wednesday – she’s accepting the offer. Another reason to celebrate.

Edited by Nieke Roos

A research environment enables the exploration of many new technologies, including digital twins.

WORKING IN IOT – SMART, CONNECTED SYSTEMS, A TESTIMONY At Flanders Make in Lommel, Kortrijk, Sint-Truiden and Leuven, researchers are developing new technologies and applications for intelligent robots, autonomous vehicles, interconnected machines and human-centered production sites. The aim is to keep local manufacturing companies on top of their market. Application engineer Jori Winderickx talks about his research.

Jori Winderickx

The Flemish research center Flanders Make is nearly bursting at the seams. We’re currently in the process of building a third cocreation facility, focused on Industry 4.0 production. In Kortrijk, engineers and researchers will get to work with new technologies to help companies navigate to the fourth industrial revolution. Our main challenge is to build cooperation between devices and work cells to enable better decision-making.

Smart connected systems

Autonomous vehicles can only see that which is in their own environment, things that are within their ‘line of sight’. For instance, a pedestrian crossing the street around the corner is only visible once the car turns and is in close proximity. I’m currently working on connecting auxiliary data resources to the vehicle. Other passing vehicles or static cameras could issue warnings, but the autonomous car must fi rst be able to understand these. However, if every surrounding sensor starts sounding alarms that something has been detected, it will overload the network and the messages will not come across in time.

To resolve this, I’m working on communication protocols and performing research in wireless infrastructure. You must fi rst examine how the connections will be made. Th en, you start testing the characteristics of the wireless communication protocols to get an idea of how you could use them in the best way possible. Often, you discover in the test setup a number of new aspects to consider. For instance, which access points should we provide and what if they’re out of range? Th ere will always be issues, like diff erences in network confi gurations – that’s research for you.

In a connected production environment, the algorithms can run in the cloud. Th e advantage is that we can

optimize the production process. We read out sensors and see how it all runs. With algorithms, we can immediately address errors and obstacles in the process. You also want to be able to make predictions. In one of our research projects, for example, we use the strength and frequency of vibrations to predict when a bearing will fail. These same principles also apply to autonomous vehicles. The vehicle predicts the level of risk of the environment on its route, and can then immediately adjust its behavior.

Industrial IoT

Technology can only really emerge when it has been validated in an industrial setting. You hear all kinds of promises and predictions on what the IoT can do for the industrial world, but companies are facing a problem: how can they figure this out for their environment? What does the industrial IoT (IIoT) mean for their design and their assembly process?

We’re currently developing the IIoT cloud infrastructure for Flanders Make. My fellow researchers focus on intelligent algorithms, as the models must continuously be tested. In the test phase, devices talk to the cloud. To do so, their set of components (storage, Matlab/Python environment, AI algorithms and so on) must first be configured in the cloud. If we don’t have one overall infrastructure, every project would require a private cloud where each developer would use what they know

Technology can only really emerge when it has been validated in an industrial setting.

Jori Winderickx

Jori Winderickx is an application engineer working at the Flanders Make site in Lommel since January 2020. He focuses on infrastructure for the industrial IoT. He graduated as a technology engineer in electronicsICT at UHasseltKU Leuven in 2014 and obtained his PhD at KU Leuven in 2020, with his research on an energyefficient and secure implementation for the IoT. Currently, he’s setting up a new hardware/software infrastructure, laying the groundwork for new IIoT systems for Flanders Make. The internal users are highly specialized research engineers in areas such as mathematical optimization, robotics, drivetrain modeling, machine learning and learning control.

best and are good at. That would cost a lot in terms of finances and time.

I’m building a platform where you can easily activate these components instead of creating your own implementation. We do this immediately, in an environment that’s representative of the way a company would use it. Setting up your own environment in the cloud would equate to a lot of added work for a business.

This year, we’ll start with four internal labs and two partner labs at the universities, each of which has selected one project. As such, that will allow me to collaborate closely with many researchers. Up to now, researchers worked with local servers located at each lab, only 5 meters away from the equipment. In an industrial setting, however, these servers are usually centralized at a data center – something we imitate to offer an industrially relevant platform.

Data reuse

The cloud has ‘endless’ computing power and storage capacity. On the flip side, however, the communication infrastructure between the cloud

and the devices isn’t always equally robust and doesn’t have infinite capacity. That’s why in connected plants, robots and work cells communicate with each other and to the cloud. Therefore, limiting the data streams is necessary due to the inadequate connection to the cloud. With edge computing, we now look to restrict the flow of data and bring cloud functionalities, such as digital twins, closer to the local network.

Hopefully, 5G will improve these communication aspects, with accompanying projects sure to follow. Working in a research environment offers the benefit of being able to switch topics sooner. We can also stop at a lower technology readiness level, compared to industry. If it works from an operational perspective, further development and optimization is up to industrial parties.

Apart from the communication aspects of data, we must also investigate the functional features. In the platform, we add semantics to enable reuse. Ignoring the meaning of data would mean we’d be generating gigabytes and terabytes that are only usable within one project, which isn’t sustainable. If we can maintain an overall structure, however, the data will be reusable for everyone within Flanders Make and all our industrial partners.

Exploring technologies

For me, my work is very interesting because I can explore many new technologies (AI, robotics, digital twins, augmented reality) and learn a lot. In a research center, you’re in the front row of new developments. I’m certainly looking forward to what will come next.

Edited by Collin Arocho