Industry & Technologies : The Industry of the Future Solutions (SIF) strategic contract was signed last week by the government and the Alliance Industrie du Futur, of which the Symop (union of production machines and tools) is a member. What motivated the creation of this strategic sector committee (CSF)?
Olivier Dario : The idea of a CSF dedicated to innovative industrial solutions matured within the Alliance Industrie du Futur (AIF), notably within working group 5. Co-chaired by the Symop, its objective was to push existing technological offers to manufacturers.
Over the course of the meetings, we came to one conclusion: today it is difficult to promote the innovative capacity of equipment suppliers to manufacturers. It translates little in terms of contracts. The purchasing departments of manufacturers tend to “crush innovation” because they follow commercial logic where cost is the key factor.
This criterion still too often predominates over the benefits that innovation and digital technology can bring. It is a shame when we know the involvement of suppliers in bringing out new production technologies and the many POCs. [Proof of concept, ou démonstrateurs, ndlr] put in place.
The idea behind the SIF committee is therefore for us, the suppliers, to constitute an industrial sector in its own right, recognized and supported by the public authorities, in order to better coordinate our action with that of other industrial sectors. The aim is to show in the field that digital transformation creates value.
Concretely, what will be the contribution of this CSF in relation to the action of the Alliance Industrie du Futur?
With this strategic committee, we go beyond our mission of evangelization on digital technologies to provide real solutions. The strategic contract with the government, signed last week at the Global Industry trade fair, sets out the development axes of our sector.
Beyond the ambition of bringing together suppliers from different universes – such as machine tools, robots or digital technology – the action of the SIF committee will consist in identifying the needs of other industrial sectors in order to provide adequate solutions. . The industry of the future is an industry of “customization”, not an industry of standards. The Industry Solutions of the Future sector can therefore only develop on the basis of the needs expressed by manufacturers.
With this in mind, the SIF committee has launched a digital platform open to manufacturers. It allows them to express needs around which the members of our sector can organize and work. This tool will facilitate the implementation of structuring projects, in particular to support the France Relance Plan, which aims to modernize the production apparatus.
We are already working with certain sectors, such as rail or naval. The committee will also facilitate discussions with sectors such as aeronautics and the automobile industry which are usually quite conservative with regard to their equipment.
How does the French offer in innovative industrial equipment position itself in relation to international competition?
France is very well positioned in this area, with a strong ecosystem. The sector represents nearly 32,000 companies and holds the 3th place in terms of industrial GDP in France. France has many players with a strong capacity for innovation. If we are not lagging behind in technology, we are wrong when it comes to transforming these innovative bricks into concrete solutions. The public-private partnership signed within the framework of the CSF will allow us to position ourselves further upstream, in terms of needs, but also societal expectations which are increasingly reflected in regulations.
3D printing seems to occupy an important place within the development axes of the sector. A national 3D printing plan was launched following the signing to promote the emergence of new applications. What are your expectations on this technology?
Additive manufacturing represents a very promising technological brick and constitutes a real breakthrough innovation. However, its integration into factories requires support because it is an innovation that has its own complexity.
It is necessary to work on the priming, that is to say to direct the industrialists towards the intrinsic advantages of 3D printing. It is also a process which encompasses many technologies – polymer, metal, etc. – which do not have the same requirements or prerequisites. The national 3D printing plan aims to encourage manufacturers to rethink their manufacturing method to assess the relevance of additive manufacturing in their factory.
Here again, France has strengths, particularly with manufacturers of machines dedicated to industry such as Prodways and Addup. Industrial 3D printing still has room for improvement, particularly in terms of repeatability. But technology is evolving very quickly, which clearly shows the capacity for innovation of our companies to adapt to the needs of contractors.
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