With the rapid growth of the Industrial Internet of Things and recent advances in Industry 4.0 technologies like cloud computing, machine learning and remote sensing, there’s been a lot of debate about the impact that automation will have on manufacturing over the next few years.
“Modular” is currently an often-quoted buzzword in the process industry – in process technology and engineering, automation and supply chain management.
Growing complexity, with a strong focus on digitalization and connectivity as megatrends for the whole industry, dictates the business world.
The port of Antwerp is not only an important international hub for the chemical and petrochemical industry, especially for these industries it is a significant production site too.
The traditional business model of chemical distributors is currently fundamentally challenged on one side by digitally enabled activities from principals, logistics providers, customers, start-ups, larger chemical distributors or combinations of smaller players, who try their own online channels, and on the other side by general e-retailers like Alibaba or Amazon, who explore to enter also into chemical & material categories.
