Digital transformation in service of reindustrialization
We Network and LACROIX share the belief that industrial revival in Europe and France is possible. It is through digital transformation that the industry will become more modern and more connected.
We Network has developed two areas of expertise on both aspects of this transformation.
The PRODUCT aspect, with the rise of industrial connected objects known as IIoT
The aim is to make products smarter and more connected in order to offer customers a genuine additional service based on the data collected thanks to the electronics embedded in the products.
We Network thus helps companies to properly define their needs according to market expectations, and guides them towards the industrialization of these connected objects in French electronic assembly plants.
The PROCESS aspect, with the advent of Industry 4.0
It is also a matter of rethinking production tools to make machines more connected and automated in order to become more competitive.
We Network helps the electronics sector in particular to optimize physical and data flows, by integrating the concepts of Industry 4.0 at the heart of the French electronic assembly sector.
A whole range of technical resources and expertise is therefore shared within this technology resource center and cluster of companies with around 20 employees, which acts as a trusted third party for its 200 member manufacturers.
Its mission is to help manufacturers accelerate their digital transformation thanks to the uncomplicated use of electronics.
The gamble is to see players pull together and synergize their investment capacities, as well as develop cooperation programs in their core businesses. All to accelerate their digital transformation and stay in the game.
Sébastien ROSPIDE
Managing Director, We Network
A growing momentum
Digital transformation is not easy for manufacturers to grasp. It involves a mix of partners and technologies that play a key role in the deployment of automation or digitalization projects.
Questions persist as to the ROI associated with this transformation, which involves heavy investment and process reorganization. Evolving business lines and the management and optimization of new data are just some of the challenges facing companies.
Faced with these challenges, the role of a structure such as We Network is to support manufacturers in the electronics sector, with complete neutrality and confidence, to share their problems and move forward together. The cluster has succeeded in promoting a coopetitive approach within the industry, encouraging competing companies to work together to collectively advance industrial know-how with a common objective: the culture of results.
The sharing of resources and feedback helps to accelerate this evolution in the service of the electronics industry, all in a spirit of trust as promoted by We Network.
Electronics is the foundation of the industry’s digital transformation. Without electronics, you won’t master your digital transformation.
Sébastien ROSPIDE
Managing Director, We Network
Bringing together the strengths of the industrial ecosystem to overcome technological limits
France’s electronics assembly industry is the leading in Europe. This ecosystem represents a real strength and an opportunity for all companies in the sector, which are constantly expanding as the market grows.
That’s why it’s so important to collaborate and share what can be shared, in order to progress and stay one step ahead, with a single objective: to innovate and build the world of tomorrow.
The Pléiade program, led by We Network, aims to develop the mastery of industrial processes and pool partners’ resources to accelerate progress. All players in the sector face the same technological limits. To better understand them, and even overcome them, the experts and participants in the Pléiade project are pooling their knowledge and resources to advance the mastery of electronic assembly processes, or to automate lines thanks in particular to collaborative robots (cobots) and AGVs (autonomous guided vehicles). They are also working to automate manual processes, with the aim of focusing operators on higher value-added tasks and improving competitiveness.
A total of 12 industrial partners are exchanging views on these subjects via We Network.
Experts from each competitor sharing their knowledge around a table to advance each other’s knowledge is a project that would have been inconceivable in the early 2010s.
Sébastien ROSPIDE
General Manager, We Network
Projects led by We Network Nouvelle fenêtre enable LACROIX to make progress with other companies in the industry, most recently in the highly promising field of power electronics.
Thanks in particular to LACROIX’s involvement and commitment, concrete actions have been implemented. The Symbiose Industry of the Future plant at Beaupréau-en-Mauges is a perfect example of this, and brings together a number of the results of these cooperative ventures.
The digital transformation of the electronics sector is strategic for the future of the industry, but it requires working across the entire ecosystem to meet the associated issues and challenges.
Collaborating with the entire industry is a key factor in the success of industrial projects in the electronics sector.