CROW: collective knowledge as a foundation for innovation in the civil engineering sector
The physical living environment in the Netherlands requires smart, sustainable and well-thought-out solutions. Whether it's about building infrastructure, making materials more sustainable or improving processes: good knowledge is essential. As an independent knowledge platform, CROW has been working for decades on a safe and sustainable physical living environment, with a focus on infrastructure and mobility with the aim of strengthening the sector as a whole.
What makes CROW unique is that it focuses entirely on the collective interest. It does not work for individual parties, but for the sector as a whole. Thanks to this independent role, CROW knows how to connect both clients and contractors, with a strong focus on quality, safety, sustainability and innovation.
From leaders to the peloton
“Knowledge is only valuable if you can apply it,” says Glenn Polman, Team Leader Digital Innovation at CROW. “Large organizations within the sector can often develop new working methods themselves. Smaller municipalities or water boards do not always have that capacity. We ensure that knowledge that comes from leaders becomes available to the wider field. This is how we strengthen the sector as a whole.”
Topics with impact
CROW focuses on a broad spectrum of topics that help the sector move forward, such as traffic & transport, asset management, sustainability and tendering. In addition, attention is paid to both proven standards and emerging innovations. “Take the use of circular materials,” says Polman. “We help parties to test new applications and to safeguard their knowledge in our publications and standard works.”
In addition, CROW develops information models that simplify information exchange within projects. “By standardizing data across the entire life cycle of an object — from design to reuse — we make processes smarter and future-proof. This is essential for a sector that is becoming increasingly digitally connected.”
A digital basis for sharing knowledge
To provide knowledge in a modern, accessible and sustainable way, CROW invests in a robust digital infrastructure. The Zeno system plays a central role in this. “For us, Zeno is the heart of our request-to-access chain,” says Polman. “Among other things, it supports subscription management and is now linked to other systems within our organization. This allows us to improve our services to users and better streamline our processes.”
The collaboration with Socho, the company behind Zeno, has been crucial in this. “What we love about Socho is their approach: they do what they say and say what they do. No big promises, but concrete, reliable results. The service is also well organized: we always have someone who thinks along with us. Thanks to that collaboration, we were able to build a future-proof IT architecture step by step. And that gives confidence.”
Making knowledge accessible via Zeno
An important focus for CROW is unlocking the large amount of available knowledge in a structured and accessible way. To facilitate this properly, a new digital architecture was chosen in which Zeno acts as a central link. “Zeno has become the heart of our knowledge platform,” explains Polman. “Through this system, we manage access to our publications, guidelines and tools, among other things.”
CROW works with a subscription model, where organizations get access to knowledge products in various ways — such as thematic modules or broad access via a so-called “all you can read” subscription. “What's important here,” Polman continues, “is that we not only give users access to a large amount of information, but we also want to offer it customized as much as possible. Zeno helps us structure that access and link it to specific roles or functions of the user.”
The design of this digital infrastructure makes it possible to better coordinate metadata and user data. This allows different user groups — from policy officers to executors — to access the information that is most relevant to their work more quickly. “This directly contributes to the applicability of our knowledge in practice,” says Polman.
Relevant content for different roles
In addition to making knowledge available, CROW also wants to better tailor that knowledge to the user's needs. “Our subscribers are diverse: from policy makers to executors, from lawyers to engineers. Everyone searches differently and needs different information. That's why we're improving our metadata and developing a knowledge graph. This allows us to offer more targeted information based on role or function,” says Polman.
The ambition goes even further: with the rise of AI and large language models, CROW wants to cleverly unlock its knowledge products. “We not only want people to find information, but also to be offered it in a way that suits their context. This is how we make knowledge really useful.”
Looking to the future: insight into impact
Another spearhead is increasing insight into the use and impact of knowledge products. “We want to be able to better show what our social contribution is,” says Polman. “There are often many links between our knowledge and a completed project. That makes it difficult to make our impact tangible. For example, by making better use of CRM functionalities and collecting more data about how knowledge is used, we can improve that. Then we not only know what works, but also where there is still a need.”
To do this, CROW is considering expanding the functionality within Zeno or using additional tools. “What is important is that we can also connect our knowledge to developments in the sector and to the information needs of our partners in the future.”
Working together for progress
With its neutral position, its focus on shared interests and its commitment to digital innovation, CROW remains an indispensable link in the civil engineering sector. Through smart collaborations with parties such as Socho and a clear view of social relevance, the foundation is building a knowledge platform that not only works today, but is also ready for tomorrow's challenges.
This partner story with Glenn Polman was made available by Frank Veerkamp from Inct.
