IPS Technology's anniversary year is also the silver jubilee for Frits Bax and Peter Geerts. Together they tell how, with a clear head and a well-functioning underbelly, they made something wonderful out of that venture.
That gut belongs to Peter (63). Smiling, the founder tells how, until recently, he made important investments based on his gut. "I think that could be something, such a clean room," he heard himself say more than a decade ago. Today, nearly fifty people work at this part of IPS.
'I may miss it a bit, right?'
He does feel a little nostalgic for those days. The current co-director understands that it's not like that these days. "IPS is now part of Meilink, a much larger concern. And so we work according to the procedures befitting a company of that size. It has benefited IPS a lot. A random example: the personnel policy is much more mature than before. And it is logical that a reference to my underbelly is not enough for significantly large investments. But I may miss it a bit, right?"
A meter and a half away, Frits (55) hears it nodding. "I do recognize that. Show me a product for which packaging needs to be developed and I've come up with the solution. Matter of years of experience. It's all in my head. But that doesn't suffice. A design has to be justifiable and so we have to demonstrate on paper what I think I've known for a long time."
It is a bit ironic: IPS divested itself of a large company, Philips, a quarter century ago and chose to become part of a larger entity again a few years ago. "That comparison is flawed. At Philips we no longer fit in with the core business, and at Meilink we are actually strengthening it," Peter points out.
"You have to get out of here or you'll never get out."
About Philips. Because that's where it all started. "Do you remember the term Centurion?" asks Frits. "That sweeping reorganization by Timmer, Philips' top executive at the time? Eventually that led to our corporatization. Because we saw from afar that our club, the Packaging Design Office, would one day take its turn as well." Peter: "Or that we would be merged with the people who designed consumer packaging. I didn't think that was a wise idea, because that really is a completely different profession."
Thus, IPS was born. For Peter as director-owner, it was an exciting adventure ("Family, two still young children - imagine things going wrong"), but for packaging engineer Frits little changed at first. "We even kept our workplaces in the Philips building." Peter remembers how someone from that company advised to move quickly, "otherwise you'll never get away from Philips." But then he didn't know Peter. "The rent was low and all the empty offices on our floor allowed me to sneak in land grabbing. I was fine there." Wide smile.
Eventually a move to the Boschdijk, where IPS is still located, followed. A branch on Ambachtsweg followed and houses Innovar, the cleaning service provider, and an additional location will soon follow.
"I've been working for the same company for 25 years."
The company itself grew from four colleagues in 1996 to over 100 today. And anyone looking superficially would think that otherwise IPS is still doing the same thing it did back then: designing packaging for industrial products, machines and equipment. That impression is reinforced when you hear that Frits has been serving the same client for 25 years. "I also work for other clients, mind you, but it's true: the first client I was given responsibility for in 1996 - I'm still active for that." Ten years ago, by the way, that was briefly exciting, when a new manager there was skeptical about the need for a packaging designer. "Unsolicited, he told me the other day that he had made a mistake. That he was happy with IPS. And with me."
Incidentally, the superficial consideration that we are still doing the same thing is not correct. Whereas IPS used to design packaging, today it also supplies it. The company also takes care of tooling - developing transport equipment, testing, transporting and assembling products and product parts. And then there is cleaning.
Frits has never felt the temptation to leave all these years. "This is wonderful work. I get along well with the customers and the atmosphere here in the house is also good. It's nice that as the years go by, I've become a bit of the company's go-to person for questions. 'Just ask Frits,' it sounds then."
There is no question of "last leads. "On the contrary. Since Meilink has a stake in IPS, IPS has a two-man management and Peter is concentrating more on technology. On the question of how to get a, often quite simple, product through a complex process properly? At IPS, that's in good hands. Just as IPS is in good hands at Meilink."
How he knows for sure? "That's what my gut tells me."
