Today, Veranneman Technical textiles was awarded once again with the Factory Of The Future Award. According to Agoria, the association that organises the award, Factories of the Future must, invest in digitization, in smart processes and products and in world-class production. They must also use energy and materials in a well-considered way and pay attention to the involvement, creativity and autonomy of employees.
In 2017, the Veranneman Technical Textiles subsidiary of Sioen, was awarded “Factory Of The Future”. Today, we’re proud to announce that we may call ourselves “Factory of the Future” for another 3 years. Winning this price is another great compliment to all the hard work of our entire team. Every employee has contributed in order to make us the solid future proof radar clockwork we are today.
In addition, we have been heavily investing in the further automation and digitization of our production equipment. Today, we’re in pole position as a flexible, efficient and cost-efficient company, providing the world with technical textiles. Our textiles are used as stabilisation and reinforcement scrims for flat roofs, as bird nets in agriculture, in cars and in pools amongst others.
Frank Veranneman: “We produce technical textiles, we weave, knit, or lay open structures consisting of polyester, polyamide, glass, aramid ... that are coated online. 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.”
The Factory of the future award is another proof of how we live our company slogan: Protection through Innovation. That strong spirit of innovation lives in all companies of the group. All our people have a concerted focus on knowledge, innovation and creativity. We innovate on all levels: on new materials, new production processes, new services, new niches, new markets and new requirements. Knowledge is our fundamental principle and our real capital. Every company has its own specialists working at their plant, under the wings of the central R&D centre.
Innovation is not concentrated to the R&D department. At Sioen, everyone is supposed to contribute to innovation. Every worker and employee is a valuable element in our development and growth. Our hunger for more and better is huge and is present at every level. In our company, we have an open-door policy with few hierarchical stages. We communicate directly and to the point. All this leads to quick decisions and solutions, and a constant focus on new opportunities.
We strive for incremental business. This implies that we don’t just innovate our products and services but take it a step further by adding new features, new norms, new applications, new geographic markets, new end uses and even fully innovate business models within the industry.
In addition, innovation is way wider than just operations. It extends to every single department of the group, including amongst others HR, Marketing, Sales, Finance, Health and Safety, Legal, Sustainability and Logistics.
Winning a second time boosts our confidence and is the icing on the cake.
