How Actemium helps factories make better use of their data
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Actemium, the VINCI Energies industrial process brand, has created its own startup within Lille’s EuraTechnologies incubator to help factories make better use of their data.
Immersion is more than a radical method for learning a foreign language. Actemium, the VINCI Energies industry brand, has experimented with the technique in a radically different field and taken it to a new level. In a move to gain an understanding of the ecosystem of startups working on game-changing technologies that can be used as inspiration in the factory of the future, Actemium first went to see EuraTechnologies, a startup incubator in Lille. But Actemium didn’t just get in touch – it created its own startup within the incubator: Lille Digital Solutions, a structure dedicated to Industry 4.0. Lille Digital Solutions has rapidly become a fully-fledged business unit within the Actemium brand, generating first-year revenue of €1.7 million in 2017.
VINCI Energies’s regional director in Lille, Nicolas Godefroy, describes the atypical development of this VINCI Energies structure, which lives in successful osmosis with the Lille incubator startups and the business units brought together in Actemium. “Initially, we were scouting the field, looking around, connecting the dots between what was going on in the startup ecosystem and our own approach to the industry of the future, with special attention to digital solutions. Then Actemium Lille Digital Solutions created a digital platform to support industrial mobility and MES projects. The business unit is now using it to develop a number of applications, including TeePee, which is designed to help connected technicians manage their day-to-day work from a tablet computer.”
Actemium Lille Digital Solutions is also developing customised applications to meet the specific needs of industrial companies wishing to optimise their processes.
Toolbox and comprehensive support
The startup offers companies comprehensive support in addressing the data issues they face, based on the Actemium toolbox made up of a set of business units with complementary expertise. It notably provides assistance with IoT (Internet of Things) and mobility issues.
VINCI Energies plans to put up its own building to bring together the group’s various brands within EuraTechnologies
”All the business units in the Actemium network benefit from the work of Lille Digital Solutions, which connects them with the EuraTechnologies ecosystem,” says Nicolas Godefroy. Actemium Lille Digital Solutions organises pitch presentations by the startups hosted in the cluster, to which it invites the various Actemium entities, putting the latter in direct touch with the world of innovation.
This exchange with the Lille ecosystem is now being “scaled up”, says the Actemium regional director. VINCI Energies plans to put up its own building within Euratechnologies to bring together the group’s various teams – those from Actemium as well as those from other group companies focusing on innovation such as Axians, Citeos, and Smart Building Energies. The building will serve as a demonstrator, hosting a number of selected startups and helping them to accelerate in close conjunction with the EuraTechnologies teams.
The goal is now to go beyond building Factory 4.0 with the Actemium network – the plan is to put all VINCI Energies business activities in the forefront of future developments, in order to benefit the various companies and local authorities seeking to integrate high-value-added solutions based on data.
18/07/2018
