Thirty years of product development at the highest level

Entrepreneurship, expertise, and vision. With these qualities, product development agency PEZY has grown over the past thirty years into an innovation partner for brands such as Philips and Nivea. Founder Henco Pezij, a driven entrepreneur who seizes opportunities, is always eager to look beyond the beaten track.

A recent example is the acquisition of O4 Wheelchairs, a manufacturer of high-quality wheelchairs. "Indeed, there's hardly any plastics involved there," says Henco Pezij, in our conversation together with branch manager Jan-Paul van der Voet at the brand-new location in Groningen. "We see the healthcare sector as an important growth market. O4 has a distinctive product, conceived, designed, developed, produced, and launched entirely in-house. With this step, we now have a company with proven expertise in metalworking and an established position in the healthcare market."

Henco Pezij grew up in Roden, studied mechanical engineering in Enschede, and started thirty years ago as an engineer in Groningen. "We began with a desk and a couple of computers. But we quickly realized: if you want to make a product truly good, you also need to be able to manufacture it yourself. So we bought an injection moulding machine and started developing moulds. That way, we closed the learning cycle. Today, we cover the entire process, from idea to industrially manufacturable product."

A central role in that process is played by the Pilot Factory. Here you'll find not only two injection moulding machines (Demag, 50 and 100 tons), but also a fully equipped tool shop, the Plastics Lab, and an extensive material inventory. The lab performs tests on tensile strength, impact, shrinkage, texture, and mouldflow. There's also an industrial 3D printer for rapid iterations and a blow moulding machine for prototypes.

"In-depth knowledge of the back-end of product development means that PEZY knows exactly what is technically and economically feasible, even at larger volumes. That enables us to design robustly, ensuring that a product not only works but also consistently reaches the market at high quality," says Pezij. Van der Voet adds: "When you design directly with a manufacturer, you often end up with what that manufacturer can make, not necessarily what's best for the product. We deliberately design independently of production interests and look for the optimal solution for each project. Only then do we select the right production partner."

In Groningen, 35 employees are currently working. In addition, PEZY has offices in Eindhoven (2006) and Houten (2008), and since 2012 an international hub in Singapore. Pezij: "During my MBA in 2008, I suddenly saw the Netherlands from a distance—as a small, well-connected player in a global market. Many of our clients already had an international supply chain and were working with partners in Asia. We wanted to support them in setting up production in countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, which is why we chose to establish a location in Singapore."

Singapore serves as a strategic hub for collaboration with suppliers and as a bridge to partners in the region. "We source many of our moulds there and maintain several long-term partnerships with producers of technical plastics."

Van der Voet: "Our clients often have a great deal of knowledge in-house, but we add something that both they and many manufacturers in Southeast Asia are less able to provide: high-quality function development. The Dutch development process is structured, iterative, and strongly focused on integrating design and engineering—an approach that is not yet standard everywhere internationally.

Large organizations sometimes struggle with their own scale and complexity, making it difficult to develop quickly and deeply at a functional level. We are specifically set up to operate with agility and effectiveness in that area. And although other regions are rapidly catching up, we still have an advantage here—and we're eager to put that to work for our clients."

To maintain its lead in product development, PEZY is experimenting with the use of artificial intelligence (AI) on several fronts. Pezij: "At the moment, it's still fairly informal. Everyone on the team is exploring in their own way what's relevant for their work. But I am convinced that access to and the smart use of AI will soon become a key factor in determining a company's competitive edge."

He sees particular potential in the design process: "Humans must always remain in control. But especially in CAD work, there's enormous efficiency to be gained."

Every small change in a design takes dozens of actions. If you can automate part of that, you not only work faster but also more consistently. And AI can play an important role in developing that kind of smart design software."

Henco Pezij emphasizes that it is essential for an organization to keep innovating continuously: "You naturally move along with existing clients, because their needs change. But if you also want to attract new clients, you need to look ahead and anticipate questions that have yet to arise. Technologies like AI help us do just that."

Although the plastics industry in the Netherlands has faced a structural shift of production abroad for decades, Henco Pezij sees opportunities by focusing on smart, future-proof solutions. The essence is this: plastics in themselves are no longer a growth market in the Netherlands. What is growing, however, is the demand for smarter, more sustainable applications. That's where we can make a difference—by carefully considering upfront what is truly needed and what can be improved.

"When Michael Braungart brought Cradle-to-Cradle (C2C) to attention in 2010, we immediately took that development seriously. We followed training, became accredited, and have since been actively working with circular design principles." That early investment is now starting to pay off: "The transition is gradual but clearly noticeable. Over the past five years, demand has been growing—from clients, from consumers, and, very importantly, from marketers. Sustainability is no longer an abstract ideal, but has become a concrete part of product development."

The demand for product development using recycled materials is growing worldwide, particularly among major brands seeking to make existing products more sustainable. Design for recycling is also something more and more organizations want to embrace. "We see that multinationals around the world are looking for in-depth expertise in recycled materials and circular design," says Pezij. "In recent years, we've strongly positioned ourselves in this field and understand the entire landscape: from material properties and processing to supply chain collaboration and regulations."

PEZY is, for example, involved in several EU consortia, including PolyCE. As part of that project, team members Thijs Feenstra and Joop Onnekink initiated the book Design for & from Recycling, a practical guide to circular product design. They are currently working on a follow-up: Increase, a practical recycling assessment tool—again in book form—set to be published this summer. "The goal is to help companies better evaluate how recyclable their products are and how they can improve them."

Hazardous substances are an increasing concern within the recycling industry. Especially when reusing materials, understanding chemical composition and safety is crucial. "As a development partner, we want to manage the entire cycle properly—from material selection to safe reuse," says Pezij. "That's why we work closely with suppliers and material specialists to understand exactly what is in recycled materials and how we can avoid potential risks."

This is especially important in sectors with strict safety requirements, such as the health tech & care market for PEZY. Here, the company works with partners on products where reliability and material safety are essential.

At the same time, Pezij also sees opportunities in other markets: "For consumer products we expect a somewhat flatter growth curve, but within fast-moving consumer goods—such as dispensers and complex packaging systems—demand continues to rise. That's precisely where recycled materials can be applied effectively, provided we can fully guarantee safety."

Scale-ups are an important target group for PEZY. The company actively invests in collaborations with young, fast-growing businesses, guiding them in co-creation from idea to production-ready design. Pezij: "We enjoy working with entrepreneurs who truly want to bring something new. Often, we start supporting them from the very first sketch or initial idea, and together we build a scalable, manufacturable product."

The earlier a scale-up reaches out, the better: "Sometimes someone comes in with a 3D-printed prototype, but if that design isn't suitable for injection moulding, it has to be largely redeveloped. That's, of course, a waste of time and investment. That's why early alignment is crucial."

Over the past decades, PEZY has evolved into a company that masters the entire chain—from idea to product. This development required time and careful growth. The next step was international expansion into Asia. And although the world has changed regularly since then—think of the pandemic, geopolitical shifts, and changing customer behavior—the company continues to look ahead and anticipate.

"You can't predict everything, but you do need to be ready to act," says Pezij. At present, he is focused on the next big step: growing from 70 to 120 employees. "Such a scale-up requires a fundamentally different way of organizing. You want to maintain agility while also professionalizing the structure." PEZY aims to keep working lean, precisely because many clients choose the company for its speed and flexibility. "We often deliver a mould within just a few days. That agility is a key part of our proposition," says Pezij. At the same time, growth brings economies of scale. "Overhead costs such as IT only become efficient as you scale further. So you need to make smart choices."

International dynamics also remain a factor. Clients increasingly work with production partners in low-wage countries. To stay relevant, PEZY focuses on technical depth and innovation. A full relocation abroad, however, is not considered desirable. "We believe in local ownership. Every office must add value independently—for the client and for the people working there. Leadership must always come from content, from the Netherlands. Only then will the organization remain strong and agile."

If you want to outsource parts of the development process, you need to choose the right moments. According to Henco Pezij, there are three logical "decoupling points":

• After idea development, when the direction is clear.
• After prototyping, when the design is established and the intellectual property is secured.
• After detailing, when you can support production partners with moulds and tooling.

"If you do that carefully, you remain valuable as a development partner. That's why we invest structurally in knowledge—about materials, processes, and circularity. Our specialists work daily with clients and suppliers to validate new materials such as recyclate or biobased plastics. Because applying them is never a standard process. Every innovation is custom work. That's how we bring ideas from nothing to something valuable. And how we stay relevant, even in a changing world."