The launch­ing of the Qua­tri­um Hauts-de-France plat­form at UTC, on Novem­ber 14, brought togeth­er near­ly eighty peo­ple. All came to dis­cov­er the tech­nolo­gies and exper­tise avail­able to sup­port indus­tri­al SMEs and mid-sized com­pa­nies in their dig­i­tal and eco­log­i­cal trans­for­ma­tion, as well as con­crete solu­tions to gain agili­ty, per­for­mance, and resource efficiency.

The Qua­tri­um project was sub­mit­ted by CETIM to BPI France in response to the 2020 “Indus­try of the Future Accel­er­a­tion Plat­form” in 2020. It received the Prime Minister’s approval in 2021. Qua­tri­um is a nation­al project imple­ment­ed across four regions: Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Grand Est, Hauts-de-France and Pays de la Loire. CETIM wel­comed the first com­pa­nies to its plat­forms in 2022. UTC-Com­pieg­ne joined Qua­tri­um Hauts-de-France in ear­ly 2025 thanks to fund­ing from the Region and the Euro­pean Union. The project aims to pro­vide com­pa­nies with sup­port from spe­cial­ists to ensure the suc­cess of their mod­ern­iza­tion projects. Cus­tomized path­ways are offered for each com­pa­ny. From tech­ni­cal advice to imple­men­ta­tion sup­port, UTC pro­vides solu­tions that com­ple­ment those of oth­er part­ners. A ded­i­cat­ed space at UTC allows new tech­nolo­gies to be pre­sent­ed to local man­u­fac­tur­ers. While CETIM nat­u­ral­ly focus­es on the mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing sec­tor, UTC com­ple­ments this approach by engag­ing com­pa­nies in the chem­i­cal and agro-indus­tri­al sec­tors. The idea? It involves devel­op­ing con­nect­ed tools for man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es, such as a smart con­vey­or line. The goal of the Qua­tri­um Hauts-de-France plat­form is to accel­er­ate the dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion and the eco­log­i­cal and ener­gy tran­si­tion of SMEs and mid-sized com­pa­nies through tai­lored sup­port for each business.

Test, integrate and take action

Thanks to demon­stra­tion plat­forms, com­pa­nies can test and iden­ti­fy tech­nolo­gies suit­ed to their needs. At UTC-Com­pieg­ne, the tech­ni­cal facil­i­ty pro­vides state-of-the-art equip­ment for the indus­try of the future, includ­ing a smart, con­nect­ed con­vey­or line. “UTC teams and experts will advise com­pa­nies based on their projects: solu­tion selec­tion, sus­tain­able inte­gra­tion, test­ing, ensur­ing the reli­a­bil­i­ty of invest­ments, indus­tri­al­iza­tion and staff train­ing,” explains Muriel Wind­holtz, Head of Oper­a­tions and Cor­po­rate Rela­tions for the Qua­tri­um Hauts-de ‑France project at UTC-Com­pieg­ne. Qua­tri­um aims to answer ques­tions that indus­tri­al SMEs are ask­ing them­selves. How can they take advan­tage of the pro­ject­ed dig­i­tal tran­si­tion in their fac­to­ries? How can they gain flex­i­bil­i­ty and agili­ty? Or, how can they inte­grate the cir­cu­lar econ­o­my while remain­ing competitive?”

At the heart of UTC’s DNA

The pro­pos­al is to help par­tic­i­pants dis­cov­er the ben­e­fits of new tech­nolo­gies in the fac­to­ry place through sem­i­nars and work­shops, to see these tech­nolo­gies in action and to take the next steps by imple­ment­ing them. For Julien Le Duigou, a pro­fes­sor of Mechan­i­cal Engi­neer­ing at UTC’s Rober­val Lab­o­ra­to­ry and head of the inte­grat­ed pro­duc­tion and logis­tics pro­gramme with­in Qua­tri­um Hauts-de-France at UTC-Com­pieg­ne, this plat­form is ful­ly aligned with UTC’s strat­e­gy as it com­bines teach­ing, research, and indus­try partnerships—which con­sti­tute the very DNA of UTC. “The goal of the Qua­tri­um Hauts-de-France project is to help the Region’s Small and Medi­um-sized com­pa­nies (SMEs) achieve their dig­i­tal and envi­ron­men­tal tran­si­tion. The ben­e­fits for stu­dents are that they can work on tech­nolo­gies they will encounter lat­er in the work­place. The ben­e­fits for fac­ul­ty mem­bers will be hav­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work direct­ly with com­pa­nies on real-world prob­lems using real data. And for the com­pa­nies involved, it’s also about build­ing connections—both with stu­dents to ensure they have peo­ple trained in their tech­nolo­gies, and with fac­ul­ty mem­bers who can pro­vide exper­tise on the issues that con­cern them.”

Synergy of trust and experimentation

With­in Qua­tri­um Hauts-de-France, com­pa­nies will there­fore sub­mit their chal­lenges, their prod­ucts, and their data and fac­ul­ty mem­bers will be in a posi­tion to con­tribute their exper­tise and insights from their research, work­ing along­side the com­pa­nies to devel­op inno­v­a­tive solu­tions. “The next phase of the Qua­tri­um Hauts-de-France project at the UTC will involve con­tin­u­ing to devel­op the plat­form with new sce­nar­ios and new tech­nolo­gies that we’ll be able to inte­grate,” adds Julien Le Duigou. “The goal is to posi­tion Qua­tri­um as a hub so that com­pa­nies in the Region auto­mat­i­cal­ly think to go through Qua­tri­um when they want to iden­ti­fy or even devel­op new tech­nolo­gies in their fac­to­ries.” All of this is aimed at strength­en­ing French indus­try, which is suf­fer­ing from a com­pet­i­tive­ness gap due in part to aging machin­ery and facil­i­ties. The indus­tri­al land­scape in France 80% SMEs, which, with Qua­tri­um, will now have a deci­sion-mak­ing tool to move for­ward and secure their projects.

The connected factory at the heart of the coming industry of the future

The glob­al “Indus­try 4.0” mar­ket is boom­ing, with an esti­mat­ed aver­age annu­al growth rate of 16.4% over the 2021–2028 peri­od, ulti­mate­ly reach­ing $337.1 bil­lion by 2028. The impact of the health cri­sis has forced many com­pa­nies to rein­vent them­selves, for exam­ple: through the dig­i­ti­za­tion of process­es. “Indus­try 4.0” today rests on three main pil­lars: indus­tri­al con­trollers (approx­i­mate­ly 20% of the mar­ket), con­nect­ed fac­to­ries (approx­i­mate­ly 40% of the mar­ket) and indus­tri­al IoT [inter­net of things)(also approx­i­mate­ly 40% of the mar­ket). The con­nect­ed work­shop involves the con­nec­tiv­i­ty of man­u­fac­tur­ing machines, as well as their net­work­ing and the over­all com­mu­ni­ca­tion of a set of tools com­pris­ing a process. With Qua­tri­um, CETIM and its part­ners, such as UTC-Com­pieg­ne, pro­vide com­pa­nies with experts in trans­for­ma­tion and avail­able tech­nolo­gies, along with per­son­al­ized support.

Seven major challenges for industrialists that can be actively addressed via Quatrium

• Man­u­fac­tur­ers will receive guid­ance in devel­op­ing their decar­boniza­tion strategies.
• Qua­tri­um experts offer sup­port to con­duct an ener­gy audit, estab­lish man­age­ment sys­tems and recov­er, opti­mize, and/or reduce ener­gy consumption.
• SMEs can receive advice on reduc­ing noise, soil pol­lu­tion, and smoke emissions.
• Qua­tri­um experts will guide com­pa­nies in the eco-design of their prod­ucts, dig­i­tal mod­el­ling and sim­u­la­tion, the qual­i­fi­ca­tion of new pro­duc­tion tech­nolo­gies, the indus­tri­al­iza­tion of a new prod­uct and devel­op­ing a roadmap for mov­ing upmarket.
• Man­u­fac­tur­ers can ben­e­fit from the per­for­mance and agili­ty offered by new tech­nolo­gies, receive guid­ance on process automa­tion or robo­t­i­za­tion, and achieve dig­i­tal continuity.
• SMEs will receive guid­ance on man­ag­ing pro­duc­tion flows and orga­ni­za­tion and opti­miz­ing process performance.
• Quatrium’s sup­port enables the devel­op­ment of con­nect­ed prod­ucts, arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and auto­mat­ed prod­uct inspection…

KD