From decades of expertise to breakthrough innovation, Jo Gilet’s journey delivers NHQ—a platform transforming how tanners buy, sell, and inspect leather.
For more than 45 years, Jo has lived and breathed leather. From his early start at Transmarinde in Rotterdam—trading hides across six continents—to advising leaders like Airbus and Porsche, he built a career grounded in technical expertise and a sharp instinct for quality. Before his trading years, Jo began even closer to the craft—at Tannery Schweizer—where he gained hands-on experience with production realities and quality variation. This early immersion shaped his lifelong drive to improve how quality is measured. Yet one issue always bothered him: hide inspection remained slow, subjective, and error-prone.
Nearly a decade ago, Jo set out to change that. His first attempt at autonomous inspection was bold, but too early. Technology couldn’t keep up. Still, he never let go of the idea.
Everything shifted on his second attempt—this time with Dr. Schenk, whose industrial optical surface inspection technologies are used worldwide across sectors from automotive to medical. Combined with state-of-the-art AI, Jo finally had everything needed to bring his vision to life.
The Result: NHQ
NHQ is a fully autonomous hide-inspection platform analyzing wet blue through finished leather with objective, repeatable precision. It accelerates production, reduces waste, builds trust with auditable data, and integrates seamlessly with ERP, QA, and cloud systems. It retrofits easily into existing lines and requires almost no training—complexity distilled into simplicity with an intuitive GUI. What was once a bottleneck is now an advantage.
Success, at Last
After years of R&D in real tanneries across many countries, NHQ now performs exactly as it should—reliably, consistently, and fully autonomously. For Jo, it’s a moment of deep pride: his vision finally works on the tannery floor. And with his son—the seventh generation in leather—leading NHQ’s development as Chief Technology & Innovation Officer, the family legacy continues stronger than ever.
Built by leather professionals with decades of experience, NHQ delivers what the industry long needed: objective, repeatable, fully autonomous hide inspection. Jo’s vision is now a global reality—buyers and sellers can decide with confidence, guided by verifiable facts instead of guesswork.
For those curious to see it in action, NHQ shows how inspection can be faster, more precise, and more trustworthy—turning one of leather’s oldest challenges into clarity and efficiency.
And yes—this is what leather inspection dreams are made of.