Arjan van Otterloo

Arjan van Otterloo

Senior Design & R&D Engineer

About Arjan van Otterloo

When Arjan first joined Hobré there was no R&D department yet, which made him decide to gain more experience somewhere else. The technology of Hobré and intelligence of the people made him turn back in 2003. He started working as an R&D Engineer, and since 2008 has also served as a Senior Designer at the R&D department.

Speaking on Hobré’s collaborative R&D culture, Arjan says, ‘there is so much knowledge at Hobré, there is no customer challenge we can’t meet. I like the challenge to create a design that is both great for the customer, and great for Hobré. Everytime when I think a design is perfect, there is always someone else who will have an idea to make it even better and reduce for example production costs and maintenance costs. The cooperation within the departments makes you reach much more and makes everything much more fun.’

What he likes most about working at the R&D department is creating something entirely new from scratch. Arjan says, ‘At the R&D department there are a lot of colleagues with strong personalities and extended knowledge who are convinced about their own ideas, the challenge is to combine all our individual ideas together for the best result. And it works.’

When Hobré was changing from an integrator in to a production company, the company needed different certificates for many of its products. Due to Arjan’s experience, he became the person responsible for our ATEX, IECEx and KCS certification. Arjan says, ‘the most important part of this role is to stay compliant with the regulations and to create awareness within the organization about the importance of these certificates and safety of our equipment users.’

‘Unfortunately is still happens that Ex equipment is not functioning properly  and that people get harmed. If the customers in those cases would have bought our products which are certified and would have kept regular maintenance, this would never happen. I am glad and proud that we at Hobré invest in the quality of our products, to make sure our customers do not have to worry about safety anymore and can focus on production efficiency.’

Meet my other colleagues