With 20 years of experience in greenhouses and innovative floriculture, I am eager to share my knowledge, support your team, structure your processes, and help you grow.
About
As a fourth-generation grower, I always felt right at home in greenhouses and nurseries at an early age. From learning the tiniest tricks from my grandfather as a young boy, to producing forcing schedules for our family’s company as a young adult. In fact; when most 16-year-old boys were busy playing video games, I was cultivating my very own three acres.
Being Dutch, I come from a culture of experienced and innovative growers. It also means I’m socially easy-going, as well as a straight shooter. I believe in honest and efficient communication, and my door is always open to talk.
With 20 years of experience, including at top companies, I firmly believe that structure is a key component for success. Structure creates peace of mind and allows for more predictable outcomes. Especially in our business where lots of elements need to come together for the best possible results.
Ultimately, my goal is to create environments where people can thrive and businesses can grow. So, let’s talk about what I can do for you.
Services
To give you an idea, here are parts of the expertise and types of collaborations I offer.
Planning
I have a knack for efficiency and a lot of experience with planning. By streamlining production and forcing schedules, we subsequently make staffing needs more predictable, which is essential for controlling labour costs. Let’s make sure costly measures like overtime and double time become the exception and not the norm.
Growing
Yield and recovery rates are important indicators, but they can be challenging to improve. It depends on a delicate combination of nutrition, irrigation, test analyses, work instructions, and much more. If you tell me about your approach, I can help you fine-tune your growing processes towards better results.
Production
There’s always room for improvement in the collaboration between people, machines, systems, and inventories. These important assets need to be implemented timely and efficiently to get the best results. Using a range of tools, varying from planning to automation, I will increase your speed and capacity while preserving your quality.
Periodic Audit
Most companies don’t need an additional full-time manager on-site, but rather a quality audit every once in a while to tighten up processes. With my outsider’s perspective and broad experience, I can walk alongside your team and make sure your ABCs are still proficient and carried out accordingly.
Start-up
With every expansion, you want to maintain a high level of quality and productivity from the ground up. However, start-ups and turnkey projects can be challenging for teams. So, while I manage oversight, your team leaders can focus on output and day-to-day operations, protecting your yield from day one.
Knowledge Exchange
As a Dutchman, I am educated and experienced in a leading market when it comes to greenhouses and innovative floriculture. My expertise could provide your team with valuable input, for a boost in education and know-how. By developing reports and analyses specific to your ambitions, we can get your company to the next level.
Want to know what else I can do, or are you facing a specific challenge? Please contact me by using the form below, and I will reach out to you as soon as possible.
References
Besides individual projects and collaborations, I obtained the bulk of my knowledge and experience from two great companies: Sun Valley and Wesselman Flowers.
Sun Valley is a North American company that’s globally known in the floral industry. In five years, I developed from a grower specialising in tulips, to being the assistant production manager of their largest farm. There, I was responsible for up to 100+ people in my team and regularly managed peak production, effectively quadrupling our usual output. Sun Valley also thrives on operational excellence, which enabled me to truly develop skills like large-scale planning, innovating crop protection, and mastering the production process from start to finish.
Wesselman Flowers is a top player in the world of tulips, located in the Netherlands. And where Sun Valley taught me all about the key processes, my focus at Wesselman Flowers was on the implementation and efficiency of it all. As production manager, I constantly worked on automation and innovation, especially concerning biological control. During these eight years, some personal highlights included reducing our use of chemicals to zero and advising on the development of the next generation of bulb planting machines.
Contact
If you’d like to know more about my services or what I could do for your organisation, please let me know. Simply contact me by using this form, and I will reach out to you as soon as possible.
Antoon Volwater
+31 (0) 6 549 107 52
Antoon Volwater
+31 (0) 6 549 107 52
© Antoon Volwater 2024