Dirk Bissel

Dirk Bissel has worked for Vallourec since 2009; since 2017 as Director Sales for the Europe/Africa Region. Vallourec specializes in pipe solutions for the Energy market (in which it is market leader) and the Industry market. The company is one of Van Leeuwen’s key suppliers.

‘Vallourec has worked closely with Van Leeuwen for several decades. Van Leeuwen has managed to secure a strong position in the petrochemical industry in relation to standard product delivery and in relation to specialized projects. Keywords here are high-quality at all times, professionalism and excellent project management. We generally experience their sound project management capabilities when we jointly tender for large specialized projects. Due to challenging market conditions there were fewer of these projects in recent years. However, I note that the economy in Europe, the Middle East and Asia is picking up, so we will once again be intensifying global cooperation in this area.

Van Leeuwen is an important partner of Vallourec. Together we work on innovation in the supply chain. For example, I expect that our new joint database, to be created in 2018, will benefit us. We will provide our products with a QR code. When you scan this code with your mobile telephone, Vallourec’s, as well as Van Leeuwen’s employees can view all of the pipe’s specifications. This way we maintain a closed chain with Van Leeuwen, which enables us to guarantee customers that no pipes of inferior quality will be used in a project. Thanks to digitization our materials can always be traced. It also enables us to identify the properties of our treated steel that are required for a specific application. This digital data also helps us in the development of new products. For example, considerably longer pipes or pipes that are able to withstand higher or lower temperatures or pipes with improved corrosion resistance properties.

What we have in common with Van Leeuwen is that we both aim to expand our portfolio and to design our processes so as to be able to shorten delivery times. I am impressed by Van Leeuwen’s loyalty, trust and innovative capacity. We can learn and benefit a great deal from each other.’