Factory of the Future Award for innovation, sustainable production and care for our people
Factory of the future award lifts us higher
Veranneman Technical Textiles has won the Factory of the Future Award for future-oriented manufacturing companies in two consecutive periods: 2017 and 2020. The title of ‘Factory of the Future’ counts for three years and is a great achievement of our team’s efforts. The Veranneman Technical Textiles production site is equipped with state-of-the-art machinery that are often fully or partially developed and/or modified by our own engineers. Thanks to that, we can focus on automation and digitalisation, quality, ergonomics and on work efficiency.
Veranneman: Factory of the Future in 2017 and 2020
Veranneman Technical Textiles has won the Factory of the Future Award for future-oriented manufacturing companies both in 2017 and 2020. You might ask what happened in the years between 2017 and 2020? Well, the title counts for three years, meaning that we couldn’t compete in those years.
Innovation is in our blood. Everyone at Veranneman and the Sioen Group ‘Protects through innovation’. As our R&D department is part of the machinery development, it is possible to focus on automation, work efficiency, quality, ergonomics and digitisation. We can respond to the needs and ideas of our workers more easily.
Frank Veranneman on winning twice
Frank Veranneman: “Our processes have always been fairly automated, although we felt that a number of things could still be improved. After winning the Factory of the future award in 2017, we were even more motivated to improve. The past 3 years, we’ve tackled the subjects we scored less on and maintained the high level of success in the fields that we dominated. Winning in 2017 gave us a boost to excel and to continue on the chosen path."
Transformation
To qualify for the awards, companies must have gone through seven transformations necessary to be agile, high-tech organisations
- World Class Manufacturing Technologies: deploying the most up-to-date production equipment;
- End-to-end Engineering: product development in function of the entire value chain, with the aid of virtual models and simulations;
- Digital Factory: digitalisation of the operational processes, interconnected via the Internet;
- Human Centered Production: involvement of employees in the future-oriented business development;
- Production Network: the organisation is embedded in a coherent network ;
- Eco Production: sustainable production systems with an eye for each phase of the life cycle of a product; the cycle of materials is closed and the use of energy is drastically reduced;
- Smart Production Systems: being able to respond quickly to changing market demands.
Innovation: people and machines
Veranneman Technical textiles developed and introduced an innovative technology: the laid scrim technology. This technology lays down the threads, instead of crossing them (weaving), which is cheaper and faster. This enables the company to develop new products and tap into markets more quickly.
Much of the attention within the company has been focused on reducing the (work) pressure on personnel, for example by integrating automation in the supply of PVC, PLCs that henceforth control the machines and a central, digital cockpit (COOLBOX) in the workplace. The strong technological experience with specific, highly diversified products enables the company to distinguish itself from (Asian) competitors.
“We continue to invest in digitisation, in smart processes and products and in world-class production. In addition, we use energy and materials in a well-considered way and pay close attention to the involvement, creativity and autonomy of employees.” Says Frank Veranneman.
Examples of the latter are the Coolbox and Paperless Veranneman.
Corporate Social Responsibility
Winning the Factory of the Future award twice proves that our efforts in innovation and in modernising our infrastructure pay off. The Sioen Group aims to work on all Sustainable Development goals, but this case perfectly fits SDG9, which states that you should ‘build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation’. Another example of this SDG is Veranneman’s Coolbox initiative.
Who is who
Veranneman Technical Textiles produces tailored technical scrim solutions for various applications such as roof reinforcements, geogrids, swimming pool covers, reinforcement nets, windbreak nets, facade cladding and filters. Woven, laid and coated varieties (through engineered dip-coating processes) are available.
Agoria is the federation for the Belgian technological industry. Agoria’s organisational structure is founded on expertise centres, market teams, industry teams and policy units.
Sirris is the collective centre for and by the technological industry. They offer Belgian companies three key assets to help them remain innovative: years of experience and comprehensive expertise in a wide range of industries, high-tech testing infrastructure spread across the country; and an extensive network of partners.