Den Hartogh Transport is a leading player in chemical logistics with more than 100 years of experience in transporting liquid chemicals, gas and dry bulk. What started as a local transport company grew into a global logistics organization with 2,700 employees spread over 28 countries and 58 offices worldwide.

Cooperation with Scan Sys began early on in the digitization of administrative processes. Michel Meijers, IT & Project Manager at Den Hartogh, has expanded this cooperation in recent years.

When he joined the company in 2015, ImageCapture was already in use, but the acquisition of Inter Bulk and rapid international expansion made it necessary to take automation to the next level. “The basics were already there, but the challenges increased. We suddenly had thousands of additional invoices per month, while we wanted to keep our operational costs under control.”

The challenge

The acquisition of Inter Bulk meant not only a doubling of the workforce, but also a huge increase in administrative processes. Suddenly, many more invoices had to be processed, and the existing workflow could not efficiently accommodate that growth. “Previously we had over thirty employees manually processing expense invoices,” Michel explains. “That was not a sustainable solution, especially if you want to continue to grow internationally without exploding costs.”

In addition, Den Hartogh was expanding strongly in Asia, with a specific focus on India. International growth brought additional complexity, as local administrative processes had to be aligned with a central, standardized workflow. This made it necessary to have a flexible and scalable system that could be deployed globally.

The process/method

To streamline administrative processes worldwide, ImageCapture was further integrated step by step within the organization. Optimization began in the Netherlands, where the first improvements were made to make invoice processing faster and more efficient. The software was then rolled out in Germany, Poland and France so that administrative processes could be unified there as well.

Further integration in Asia and India followed in the following years, where Den Hartogh was expanding rapidly. The combination of a centralized workflow and local flexibility allowed the different branches to work efficiently worldwide, without the automation process becoming too rigid. Michel emphasizes that this phased approach was crucial: “This set-up allowed us to smoothly transition and continuously optimize, without disrupting our daily operations.”

What Den Hartogh particularly appreciated about ImageCapture was the software’s flexibility and seamless integration with its existing Transport Management System (TMS). This allowed invoices to be automatically linked to orders and transportation data, speeding up approvals and reducing errors.

What's next?

Den Hartogh continues to innovate and is fully committed to further digitization. Currently, the company is developing a new Transport Management System, Transfusion X, which takes the automation of operational processes to an even higher level. ImageCapture will play a crucial role in this, as it seamlessly integrates advanced invoice and document processing with this new platform.

“With Transfusion X, we want to take the next step in level of detail and efficiency. The goal is to process even more data automatically and gain advanced insights. We have already made great strides with ImageCapture, but we still see opportunities to work smarter and faster. The flexibility of the software makes it possible to fully support this development.”