Member Article

AutoFill Technologies hires top rail specialist Frank van Veldhuijzen to lead its rail innovation projects

• Van Veldhuijzen’s previous roles include managing key maintenance projects at ProRail, the Dutch government agency in charge of the country’s rail and infrastructure maintenance.
• The appointment comes during a competitive labour market under enormous pressure where highly skilled personnel is very scarce.
• Health and safety across rail networks remain a concern with avoidable incidents continuing to occur across some of the world’s busiest networks.

AutoFill, a deep tech company revolutionising inspection workflow processes for the automotive and rail industries, has appointed industry veteran Frank Van Veldhuijzen to lead the firm’s major rail innovation projects to help provide a safer rail network.

With over a decade of experience managing critical infrastructure and maintenance schemes, Van Veldhuijzen joins AutoFill from ASSET Rail, one of the biggest maintenance contractors, where he was responsible for heading up innovation and digitalisation on behalf of the Dutch government.

He also held several key managerial posts while working for the Dutch transport ministry, ProRail where he helped oversee the vital maintenance and extension works across the national railway network infrastructure.

Van Veldhuijzen will be responsible for driving forward AutoFill’s delivery of a joint initiative with the Utah Transit Authority (UTA) and the University of Utah - backed by the Federal Transit Administration to inspect the inside and outside of tracks using combined heat and vision technologies.

His day-to-day role will involve directing the implementation of AutoFill’s in-house machine learning technology into its current and future rail operations.

Commenting on the appointment, AutoFill CEO and co-founder, Gideon Richheimer, said: “Frank brings a wealth of public and private sector expertise and experience having played a key role in using technology to find innovative solutions, for the Dutch government to deliver efficient and world-leading maintenance and infrastructure, whilst also maintaining the highest standards of health and safety.”

Globally, there has been a trend in the number of avoidable incidents that could have been avoided if not due to oversights made from manual inspections that missed hazardous incidents such as faulty tracks. According to the Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA), in January this year, there were 141 incidents in the rail network across the U.S.; an average of 50 per month – a large part of which were due to avoidable human factors that could have been corrected. Similarly, in January 2019, there were 213 incidents and 186 incidents in January 2018 which gives an insight into the rate of incidents occurring and the cost and safety implications that these create.

Richheimer added: “This appointment is a real statement of AutoFill’s ambition to cement itself as the go-to leading deep tech company providing automated inspection and our plans to replicate these processes nationwide. Having someone of the calibre and gravitas of Frank on board will play a significant role in helping us with our next stage of expansion and growth.”

AutoFill, which launched in 2019, has created a multi-sensor solution that identifies object anomalies and delivers evidence-based, objective analysis. This increases the accuracy of quality standards within the automotive and rail industries and removes the need for human involvement, consequently reducing the risk of error.

Speaking of his appointment, Van Veldhuijzen said: “I am impressed by the commitment and vision that AutoFill has in taking inspections in a new direction by making them more efficient and less prone to human error. I’m looking forward to working with the AutoFill team to help deliver its ambitious agenda on supporting its infrastructure projects to deliver the highest standards of rigour to rail maintenance and making the rail network as safe as possible for all who come into contact with it.”

Van Veldhuijzen’s appointment follows a series of key growth and personnel milestones for AutoFill, including an initial pre-series A funding of €2.6 million and attracting high-calibre hires to its Advisory Council. These are made up of: Women in Tech® founder and CEO, Ayumi Moore Aoki, Rick Belluzzo, former COO of Microsoft and Bram Schot, former CEO of Audi.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Eugene Clark .