Continuous Production Monitoring at De Bruyn Industrial Coating

INTRODUCTION

Four Decades of Industrial Coating Excellence

Lakkerij De Bruyn, established in 1984, is a specialist in high-quality industrial coating services, operating from their facility in Malle, Belgium. Their offering spans the full coating workflow, from surface preparation and blasting to metallizing, powder coating, and wet coating, serving professional clients across a wide range of industries. With automated coating lines and spray booths handling both simple single-layer processes and complex multi-layer coating systems, De Bruyn combines decades of craftsmanship with modern production technology to deliver consistent, high-quality finishes.

CHALLENGES

Visibility Across a Multi-Stage Coating Process

Industrial coating is a process-sensitive operation. Factors like temperature, humidity, airflow, and drying conditions directly impact coating quality, energy consumption, and environmental compliance. For De Bruyn, several challenges drove the need for continuous monitoring:

• Process Traceability: With parts moving through preparation, coating, and drying stages, De Bruyn needed a way to trace production parameters through time, understanding exactly how each batch was coated and dried, and being able to look back when questions arise.

• Energy Efficiency: Running automated coating lines, spray booths, and drying ovens around the clock consumes significant energy. Without continuous measurement, identifying inefficiencies or drift in energy usage remained difficult.

• Emission Awareness: As an industrial coating facility working with paints, powders, and solvents, keeping track of overall emission behaviour is essential, both for environmental responsibility and regulatory awareness.

• Productivity Insights: De Bruyn wanted to move beyond reactive troubleshooting toward a data-driven understanding of how their coating lines perform over time, enabling them to spot trends and make informed decisions that benefit production quality.

SOLUTION

Wireless IoT Monitoring Across the Entire Production Process

VersaSense deployed its wireless sensor network and Enterprise IoT platform across De Bruyn's production facility in Malle, Belgium, covering the key stages of their coating process from preparation through to final drying.

Comprehensive Sensor Coverage: Wireless sensors were installed across the facility to continuously measure critical parameters including temperature, humidity, and environmental conditions at various points in the coating and drying process. This gives De Bruyn a complete picture of the conditions their products are exposed to throughout production.

Coating & Drying Intelligence: By monitoring how environmental conditions behave inside spray booths and drying ovens, De Bruyn can now track and verify that parts are being coated and dried under the right conditions and trace any deviations back through time.

Energy Monitoring: Continuous measurement of energy-related parameters across production equipment provides insight into consumption patterns, helping De Bruyn identify opportunities to improve energy efficiency and reduce costs.

Emission Tracking: The platform captures emission-related data to give De Bruyn an ongoing view of their environmental footprint, supporting awareness and proactive management of their emission behaviour.

Centralized Platform & Traceability: All sensor data flows into the VersaSense platform, where De Bruyn's team can visualize trends, set alerts, and trace production parameters over time, turning raw data into actionable insights, and integrating those with their own ERP and MES systems.

50+ — IoT sensors installed across production site

1.4 Mio — unique sensor measurements analysed per year

IT/OT — full integration with existing MES and ERP systems

RESULTS

From Blind Spots to Continuous Intelligence

With VersaSense technology in place, De Bruyn has transformed their production environment from one relying on periodic checks and manual observations to one powered by continuous monitoring intelligence.

Full process traceability: De Bruyn can now trace coating and drying parameters back through time, answering questions about past production runs with data rather than assumptions.

Energy visibility: Continuous measurement has revealed patterns in energy consumption across their lines, supporting more informed decisions on efficiency improvements.

Proactive emission management: Rather than relying solely on periodic assessments, De Bruyn now has an ongoing pulse on their emission behaviour, enabling earlier awareness and response.

Data-driven productivity: With a consolidated view of production parameters, De Bruyn's team can identify trends, spot anomalies, and continuously improve how their facility operates. This translates directly into more consistent coating quality and fewer production deviations.