How Schneider Electric Is Deploying Automation In-House To Showcase It
Schneider Electric's 'smart factory' in Le Vaudreuil, Normandy, France.
If you were to walk past global energy management and digital automation giant Schneider Electric's factory in the commune of Le Vaudreuil, Normandy, France, its demure exterior may not quite capture your imagination. But those allowed to peek inside are greeted by an imaginative transformation of a legacy estate into a 'smart factory' of the future operated by the Forbes Global 2000 company.
Its where the fourth industrial revolution or '4IR' meets manufacturing to churn out the company's hardware products. Industrial Internet of Things or 'IIoT' sensors connected to digital platforms aid with anything from plant control to raw material procurement, output monitoring to efficiencies improvement.
All the while Paul, Émile, Victor and Angélique - the plant's automated guided vehicles or 'AGV' turtles and tractors - roam the shop floors fetching products, moving parts and inventory for their human counterparts, as digital scanners perform quality control tests on manufactured products.
Those human counterparts utilize advanced data analytics, digital health and safety tools, artificial intelligence platforms and robotics for their routine tasks at a site that's morphed in less than a decade from a solutions testing ground to a scaled development hub.
'The plant is five decades old. The seeds of change were planted in 2018 when a gradual transformation was set in motion using Schneider Electric's homegrown automation solutions that enabled us to introduce digitalization to a manufacturing site that has very much been part of our corporate history,' said Virginie Rigaudeau, sustainable transformation project leader, communication and change management, at Schneider Electric, who has overseen the transformation.
'From supply chain to shop floor, what you see at Le Vaudreuil is electrification, digitization and automation in service of our colleagues, collaborators and suppliers and one that has had a positive impact on our external ecosystem too.
"It's a full spectrum 4IR offering if you wish, that we constantly monitor and improve via live data-streams from every corner of the 14,000 square meter shopfloor - a journey kick-started by our then CEO Jean-Pascal Tricoire some seven years ago,' Rigaudeau added.
Back in the day, Tricoire who is now the company's chairman, was always one to call for smart homes, smart cities, and of course, smart factories on the international energy circuit. Schneider Electric's very own smart factory does live up to its name in terms of throughput, process efficiencies and a lower carbon footprint.
Data since deployment are noteworthy. Compared to 2018, the transformation has helped reduce power consumption by 35%, cut material waste by 17%, and lower CO2 emissions by 25%.
'The factory is also equipped with a zero-reject water recycling station connected to cloud analytics monitored by artificial intelligence that predicts and processes flows leading to a 64% reduction in water use,' Rigaudeau added.
A worker uses digital tools at Schneider Electric's 'smart factory' in Le Vaudreuil, Normandy, ... More France.
Manufacturing efficiency has improved by 10%, field failure by nearly 50% and delivery lead time by a whopping 70% from the way it was prior to a full scale solutions deployment. A 'cyber-score' is kept of it all eyeing yet further improvements.
'It's all about showcasing operational excellence, state-of-the-art engineering and what the future will look like - all underpinned by energy efficiencies,' said Anthony Loy, vice president of industrial digital transformation at Schneider Electric.
The Le Vaudreuil plant, though of much obvious historical significance to a French multinational company, is one among several such global facilities on Schneider Electric's portfolio stretching from India to the U.S.
'Sitting alongside Le Vaudreuil, are our other smart factories in the U.S. (Lexington, Kentucky), India (Hyderabad), China (Wuxi) and Indonesia (Batam). In total, 11 of our sites are part of the initiative designed to further our understanding, development and upscaling of industrial information technology, operational technology and process efficiencies solutions,' Loy added.
'Essentially we are demonstrating - to both existing and prospective customers - the use cases and benefits that can be targeted in the service of the manufacturing and industrial complex by deploying the very automation and digitization solutions we market to them internally and showing them the results.'
'In today's competitive manufacturing landscape there is a solid capital expenditure, operating expenditure, business and productivity growth case for automation solutions. Operational gains, process efficiencies and fine margins matter to both us and our customers,' Loy noted.
Much of it is predicated on EcoStruxure - Schneider Electric's IIoT solutions suite - for improving industrial and manufacturing outcomes. All its smart factories deploying predictive and prescriptive analytics, AI and 4IR integrated technologies like the Le Vaudreuil plant showcase it.
That demonstration is mission critical for bagging new customers in a fiercely competitive automation business. Various estimates suggest the industrial automation market may witness a compound annual growth rate of 9% to 10% from being north of $180 billion last year to around $400 billion by the end of the decade.
Market size and growth rates will also vary in different segments of industrial automation, according to McKinsey from automotive to food and beverage. So the growth might actually even be higher contingent upon take-up by various segments of the global economy.
In each of these at any given point, Schneider Electric toughs it out with a plethora of global competitors like ABB, Honeywell, Emerson, Rockwell Automation, Siemens and Yokogawa, but to name a few.
It's what makes showing to existing and potential customers 'that you are eating your own food" really important, said Barbara Frei, Executive Vice President, Industrial Automation at Schneider Electric.
Barbara Frei, Executive Vice President, Industrial Automation at Schneider Electric.
'The idea that automation solutions can be sold on the strength of marketing pitches alone is not workable. You have to prove your credentials and your solutions. Our smart factories demonstrate this,' Frei added.
'Le Vaudreuil was a decades-old brownfield side prior to its transformation, and look what we have achieved with that. Throughout the journey that began in 2018, even before the smart automation that you see at play in 2025 - we regularly invited customers and partners there to see how we are using our homegrown solutions to improve our own manufacturing process and demonstrate quality standards. That counts."
Frei also described it as a collaborative journey. 'Not only do we conduct our internal benchmarking, but also invite input from customers about their process efficiencies and experiences to further fine tune our solutions, ultimately for them.'
The automation solutions showcasing has brought accolades too. Seven of the company's 11 smart factories have been designated as the World Economic Forum's 'sustainability lighthouses' or sites deemed as models for sustainable industrial processes and 4IR.
The initiative has also spurred on a growing consulting arm for Schneider Electric that offers customers guidance on process optimization where its kit sits alongside solutions from other vendors.
'And what starts as an automation consulting partnership then often progress to a wider commercial sale, at which point the cost of the initial consultation is compensated back to the customer.'
Naturally, such automation solutions do not come cheap. Schneider Electric declined to offer a steer on how much end-to-end solutions deployed at Le Vaudreuil would cost owing to commercial sensitivities.
As for its market growth from automation solutions sales to end of the decade, Frei said it would be 'in several multiples.' Make what you will of that, even several billions, as the company and its competitors line up to fight it out lucrative automation arena.
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