Registrations Have Doubled at Van der Ende Steel Protectors Group

Steel is one of the strongest and most durable building materials there is. Its one weakness is corrosion, and that is where Van der Ende Steel Protectors Group comes in. The family business, founded in 1929, maintains and protects steel assets for clients ranging from oil and gas companies to bridges and rail infrastructure. Van der Ende is one of the largest Dutch specialists in corrosion protection and one of the last companies of its kind still operating at this scale in the sector.

Van der Ende has been a Capptions customer since 2016. We spoke with Ilja Bangma, HSEQ manager, who joined the company in 2013, about what changed.

From Paper to Real-Time Data

Before Capptions, every registration at Van der Ende was done on paper. That approach had worked for a long time, but the company had outgrown it. Van der Ende operates across many project locations throughout the Netherlands, and often for clients in high-hazard industries such as oil and gas, so information was scattered across sites. Pulling it all together for reporting took significant time and effort.

Van der Ende needed a way to collect information in real time, in one central place, so managers could get an overview and analyse the data properly. That data becomes valuable as learning points and as a way to spot areas for improvement. Paper also made version control a headache: getting every site to use the latest version of a form took constant effort.

"If you are working digitally, the changes are available to everyone, immediately," Ilja explains.

A Different Way of Thinking About Forms

Switching to Capptions required staff to adjust, and Ilja is candid that it takes a different mindset than just digitising paperwork.

"You have the tendency to just make a direct translation from your paperwork to a digital version of your paperwork, but if you do that, you're not getting the full benefit."

Designing a form digitally means thinking upfront about what you want to do with the data it collects. That shapes the questions you ask, and keeps the form focused on its real purpose: generating data you can analyse.

Flexibility Without a Developer

What stands out to Ilja is how flexible and adaptive Capptions' inspection and workflow software is. Van der Ende can build, adjust, and evolve its own custom forms and workflows without needing a developer or help from the Capptions team. Because the platform isn't locked into prebuilt workflows, it adapts to how Van der Ende itself works, and to the very different expectations of the clients it serves.

Oil and gas clients, for instance, expect contractors to follow strict, well-defined processes, given the hazard profile of their sites. Government clients work differently but expect the same level of adaptation. Capptions lets Van der Ende build templates and workflows that fit both its own standards and each client's requirements, which matters most when the underlying work involves elevated safety risk.

"Capptions really helps us to save time and work more efficiently, because it's all digital. I don't have to wait for reports to come in, they come in automatically. So I can easily make a new report every month, year, or quarter because I've already preset the data. Do the work once, and then never again."

Because information is available in real time, Van der Ende can also respond faster when something needs attention, not just report more efficiently after the fact. Reaction time has shortened considerably, and Ilja says clients notice.

Two Changes Since Introducing Capptions

Ilja points to two shifts since 2016:

1. The HSEQ department has a better overview of all information. Data is up to date and easier to analyse.
2. Participation and engagement across the organisation have gone up substantially.

Inspections and observation registration used to fall almost entirely to the HSEQ department. Since introducing Capptions, the number of observations recorded has roughly doubled every year. Beyond the volume increase, the quality of the information and feedback coming in has also improved significantly, because Capptions pushes teams to work in a more structured way.

"In short, I'd describe Capptions as flexible and adaptive," Ilja Bangma concludes.

For companies managing safety across scattered, high-hazard project sites, and especially those operating under Seveso III / BRZO obligations where structured, auditable inspection records matter to regulators, this kind of shift from paper to real-time digital registration is often the first practical step. Read more about why generic safety management software falls short for Seveso III companies in our pillar guide.

Discover how Capptions can support your organisation's inspection and safety processes.