How Numerica is preparing for the digital future of the industry

At a "Café Numerica," a relaxed and informal gathering of folks in the regional digital cluster, Eric Menczynski, Industry of the Future project manager, shared the 2024 program and talked about what Numerica is all about: "developing uses and raising awareness of digital issues, and helping innovative projects get off the ground." 

With three buildings covering 12,000m2 to house project leaders, Numerica has the resources to make that happen. These include an incubator, a business incubator, a business hotel, and a coworking space. 

Numerica has a direct role to play in helping companies use digital solutions. The first example is Qualigest, a company housed in the business incubator and managed by Nicolas Cazette. Founded by his father in 1987, the company initially specialized in quality control. 

For the past four years, Qualigest has been developing custom software for companies, offering customers real-time production monitoring. This is a business that relies heavily on digital tools. The company collects as much production data as possible, so it can be used for artificial intelligence and forecasting. The goal is to provide customers with alerts before parts become of poor quality. Qualigest currently works with clients in the luxury goods, jewelry, watchmaking, medical, and other sectors.

Digital clay 

Rémy Tribhout is the founder of Phigi, a startup based at Numerica. It was born out of a collaboration between the Femto ST laboratory and the University of Michigan. Phigi has developed a "phygital material." What is that? It's made up of thousands of microbeads, each with electrodes and a solar microgenerator. The energy generated by mini-solar panels allows the beads to connect and form objects. These objects can be made in different places at the same time. For instance, on a company's premises and those of its customer, in real time, during the presentation of a prototype. It's kind of like digital clay that, when linked to software and a computer, also appears in 3D on a screen. 

This tool could therefore be used on a large scale in the pre-development phase of a business project. "This phase costs up to 130,000 euros," estimates Rémy Tribhout. This technology could eventually cut the cost of this stage in half.

Gathering good ideas

These beads have sensors in them, so they can send lots of data from a distance. Things like temperature, humidity, and vibrations can be transmitted. This is why Phigi could become a player in Industry 4.0. These sensors are increasingly essential to manufacturers to optimize their production. To this end, Phigi has teamed up with i55, also based at Numerica. The technology is also of interest to Nicolas Cazette for his company Qualigest. Numerica is also about bringing together the best ideas from the digital world in one place.