Hegrola integrates IoT solution in Business Central

Hegrola NV has various activities in road construction, concrete and recycling. They trade large quantities of bulk products such as rubble, concrete granulates and soil. All trucks pass over the weighbridge to determine the weight of their cargo. Weighing is a central process step in the processing of the goods.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

With the implementation of a Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central ERP solution gained valuable insights. The clear dashboards show at a glance the most important financial figures, forecasts, inventories and performance. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central touches all aspects of business operations. It connects teams and departments by centrally using the available data. The good recognizability of the Microsoft work environment and the high degree of integration facilitate its use. Hegrola employees immediately embraced this ERP solution. This rapid adaptation and the renewed insights significantly increased productivity.

Connecting OT and IT = creating intelligent processes

An application such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central can make you even more intelligent by feeding it with interesting data. And then we come back to the weighbridge. It is the task of an operator to operate the weighbridge from a control tower. The weights of trucks with and without loads used to be stored and entered manually. However, the implementation of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central opened up new perspectives.

Together with their colleagues who took care of the Business Central implementation, it was a case of IoT-Team from VanRoey.be to work. Because IoT projects are always collaborative projects. On the side of Operational Technology or OT, an integration with the existing systems is needed. This typically involves hardware solutions. In order to branch off the signal of the weight read from the weighbridge, an RS232 coupling was provided at Hegrola. One Advantech gateway in turn connects the OT with IT, i.e. the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central platform that runs in the cloud.

Win-win-win

Now the weights of trucks that pass the weighbridge are automatically transmitted to the cloud. This speeds up the process and at the same time makes it less error-prone. Less stress for the operator, shorter waiting time for the driver and fewer errors in stock management and invoicing. And win-win-win!