“Many were concerned that our companies weren’t making the leap to robotization,” observes Jonathan Gaudreault, Director of Université Laval’s Lab-Usine. “That’s because we produce small series here. We don’t have many factories making the same thing every day for 10 years. It’s more a question of custom orders, and production is different every week.”

This, he believes, is how our companies have stood out in the face of globalization. The snag, however, is that this customization is preventing many Quebec entrepreneurs from taking the next step in the digital transition.

Launched in early April, Lab-Usine, a joint research unit (UMR) on innovative manufacturing systems, aims to alleviate just this problem. “We had been working for years in collaboration with companies who wanted to find digital solutions within the Consortium de recherche en ingénierie des systèmes industriels 4.0,” recounts the director. However, the work was coming up against a wall: “Our partners were telling us, ‘We always end up listening to your recommendations, but two years later. We’d have to find a way to get us to listen to you right from the start.“

The solution finally emerged: a place to experiment with solutions before implementing them on the factory floor. “We couldn’t arrive at the customer’s site on Monday and take control of the production line to test new ideas!” illustrates Jonathan Gaudreault. The research unit allows us to fine-tune solutions before deploying them on the factory floor.

Read more in Le Devoir (in French)