Today we woke up bright and early and we’re already on a bus to Royal Flora Holland by 6:45. It was about a half an hour bus ride to the warehouse, but once we got there we quickly learned how impressive the tulip industry is here in The Netherlands. The warehouse measures 740 by 700 meters, and up until 2008 was the largest building in the world. As soon as we walked it, the first thing I noticed was the mode of transportation around the warehouse. Almost every employee on the warehouse floor was driving around on little standing scooters that were able to grab carts full of flowers and transport them to different parts of the warehouse. What truly impressed me was the efficiency of the massive warehouse. Almost all of the processes in the warehouse had some level of automation, whether it was the tracks in the floors which they travel down like trams, or the Monsters Inc door grabber-type machines that were used to carry the crates of flowers from above. This again is a sustainability measure taken by a Dutch company, because the increased processing speed of the tulips leads to increased access to all who want to buy tulips.

After leaving Royal Flora Holland, we then went to visit De Tulperij, which was a tulip and flower field in a The Netherlands. This was almost like going back in the supply chain, because we went from distributor to supplier. At the farm, listening to owner of the field speak about how the bulbs were planted and harvested, it was really interesting learning about the process from the birth of the tulip until its eventual harvest. This also appealed to me especially, as agriculture is a facet of the bioengineering industry. Throughout the visit, it was very apparent that sustainability was, once again, being taken into consideration. One measure to ensure that waste was minimized was the fact that they used the flowers that were chopped from their stems were being used as compost to feed the rest of the plant. Also, because the water level in the ground was so high at the field, the farmers didn’t need to irrigate the land, thus ensuring efficient water systems.

Tomorrow, I am really interested to visit the 3D printed bridge and visit the company that designed it. Bioprinting is a technology that I am very interested, and so I am excited to visit a company that specializes in similar technologies.