Factory of the future awarded

Gebo Cermex, a supplier of innovative packaging line solutions, has received the official mark “Vitrine Industrie du Future", awarded by the Alliance Industrie Du Futur (AIF) in recognition of its efforts to introduce, develop and implement Industry 4.0 initiatives at its plant in Saint Laurent sur Sèvre, France. On receiving the award, the company has highlighted the importance of investing in Industry 4.0 possibilities to build long term competitive advantage. This mark is awarded by AIF to companies that implement new tools such as digital data exchange and advanced robotics to drive the transformation of business models and organisations as well as design and marketing methods.

Gebo Cermex has been actively working along these lines and this award recognises the significant contribution made by its Virtual Commissioning project – which was led by the team based in Saint Laurent sur Sèvre. Key achievements – which helped the company to meet in full the requirements listed by AIF – included a 20-30 % decrease in lead times and production costs; a long-term approach towards zero defects, dramatically improving quality and accuracy; and increased reliability, due to the ability to show customers, in advance, details about the performance of their equipment.

On receiving the official mark “Vitrine Industrie du Future", Marc Aury, President and Managing Director at Gebo Cermex, said: “Industry 4.0 is currently a much-discussed topic in manufacturing. With people now showing different consumer behaviours that influence their purchasing decisions, and distribution looking for more customised delivery methods and increased responsiveness, the packaging industry needs to find new ways to improve line operations in terms of speed, efficiency, flexibility and versatility, to protect its competitiveness in a global, fast-changing market and help to secure the future of European businesses. We see this award as a clear recognition of our efforts, as the first SME (Small Medium Enterprise) to offer Virtual Commissioning to its customers.”