Finding Solutions for an Industry Leader

Hudsonville Ice Cream, local heroes and legends, began a journey to expand nationally, delivering their incredible flavors to a national audience. This growth required a technology transformation plan, focusing on plant floor automation and the ability to leverage their data. They engaged PEOPLEIT as a strategic technology partner, (and honorary ice cream samplers) in this journey.

Hudsonville Ice Cream has been making ice cream for nearly 100 years but they still continue to innovate, boasting best-in-class automation, packaging and distribution - all driven by technology. We’re a proud partner, and we're huge fans of their delicious ice cream!

Results

  • PEOPLEIT met with key stakeholders at HIC to document the organization's value stream and map out the technology systems supporting various business processes. This alignment brought focus and allowed us to identify pain points in technology systems and integrations in a more effective way.

  • As part of their expansion, they aimed to grow their sales by automating the palletizing process, including automatic labeling of pallets. We developed a custom software integration to pull data from their ERP, generating license plate numbers for automated label printing.

  • We integrated JustFood (ERP), Datex (WMS), e2Open (TMS), and Ignition (MES), connecting the systems to automate processes, eliminate manual entry, and ensure data integrity. These integrations streamlined the production scheduling and execution process.

  • We built a new data lake in Microsoft Fabric to visualize data across multiple systems, enabling both predictive analytics and historical reporting.

“As a privately owned company, finding the right business partners is key, and the PEOPLEIT team excels with their responsiveness, knowledge, and genuine collaboration.”

Nate Sytsma, Chief Financial Officer at Hudsonville Ice Cream

Outcomes & Impact

With a modern, scalable infrastructure in place, Hudsonville Ice Cream is equipped to grow with confidence. By integrating their ERP, WMS, and TMS systems, the PEOPLEIT team helped eliminate silos, reduce manual work, and streamline operations. With Microsoft Fabric bringing their data into one centralized view, their team can now make faster, data-informed decisions—fueling smarter strategy and sweeter results.

PEOPLEIT Project Team

Tyler Berens

Software Developer

Logan Kragt

Software Developer

Melissa Beyer

Business Analyst

Michael Gates

Data Engineer

Joel Boyles

Integrator

Jason Helms

Infrastructure Engineer

“I feel part of the Hudsonville team, and seeing software advance their business operations and improve quality of life for individuals has been a true reward.”

Tyler Berens, Software Developer at PEOPLEIT