Digital transformation in the industrial sector

Recovery plans keep coming in the French industrial sector, and many funded projects focus on digital transformation. Yet a real risk remains. The risk of repeating the same choices and ending up with exactly the same outcomes. If that happens, French SMEs and mid sized companies will only see a fraction of the 110 billion euros of additional annual revenue that digitalization is supposed to generate.

You can already feel it. The OEMs at the top of the pyramid have the means, the teams, and the consultants. They know how to absorb funding. But what about the rest of the value chain. The companies that keep the industry running every day yet do not have the same firepower.

The return on investment is still a mystery

Over the past months, we spent time with a number of aerospace SMEs to understand their digital challenges. The conclusion is simple. Many of their tools, processes, and habits feel frozen in the early 2000s. Managers and operators work with Excel, Sage, AS400, and other aging systems that no longer reflect the reality of modern production.

The real question is not only how to evolve. It is how to break free from a model where digitalization automatically means more cost, more tools, and long change management programs.

The two existing options do not work for SMEs and mid sized companies

Right now, industrial companies have two possible paths for digitalizing their production system.

Option 1. The path pushed by OEMs
Heavy investment in ERP, PLM, and MES. Add custom development to align these tools with the reality of the factory floor.
The outcome. Expensive projects, long timelines, mediocre user experience, and systems designed around financial processes rather than production needs.

Option 2. The path promised by startups
Multiply SaaS tools.
They have a pleasant user experience but require constant integration work, ongoing maintenance of connections between tools, and unclear pricing that is hard to predict.
And above all. The cognitive load grows. Workers switch from tool to tool. Many end up back in Excel because it is simpler and more reliable.

What both models fail to consider

They forget that SMEs and mid sized companies do not have large IT teams.
They forget that production processes evolve quickly.
They forget that tools should adapt to the shop floor, not the other way around.
They forget that digital transformation should reduce complexity, not increase it.

A third way exists

We support an alternative vision.
A solution designed for SMEs and mid sized companies.
An approach where digitalization is built where value is created. As close as possible to production.

We introduce it in article number two of this series.
A tool built by and for production.