Two of the winners of the 2020 “Industry 4.0 – The Shapers” award are from the canton of Neuchâtel: Stéphane Poggi, CEO of Felco, and Christophe Taramarcaz, CEO of HoroSys.
This competition is being organized for the third time by ManufactureThinking.ch and the Chambers of Commerce of the cantons of Neuchâtel, Vaud, Geneva, Jura, and Bernese Jura. It highlights innovative leaders in the French-speaking Swiss industrial sector and their achievements in disruptive innovation. The jury for this edition is composed of 15 members from various fields of activity.
Who is Stephane Poggi, one of the two winners from the canton of Neuchâtel?
Stephane Poggi has led Felco Motion since 2010. He is dedicated to finding innovative solutions for the products and services that the Felco Group offers its customers. He is passionate about innovation and thinks “outside the box.” Felco Motion was created to serve as the Felco Group’s innovation hub. His company has taken on the challenge of finding an innovative solution to assist winemakers with their most difficult tasks.
The Neuchâtel-based company Felco Motion has created a service concept called Digivits. It is a connected service for precision viticulture. The project led to the development of a precision geolocation system and a web interface that allows users to view and process data from a portable data-collection device. At the same time, a consortium of regional expertise was established in the field of digitizing outdoor activities, such as viticulture.
NECO supported Felco Motion SA in its innovative project through NPR funding
Who is Christophe Taramarcaz, the other winner from the canton of Neuchâtel?
Christophe Taramarcaz has led HoroSys since its founding in 2015. He has spent more than 25 years designing machinery for the watchmaking industry. During those years, he observed that such machinery is costly and cumbersome for small and medium-sized businesses. Everything changed after a visit to Japan and the Japanese consortium DTF (Desktop Factory), whose concept centers on the flexible and efficient production of small items using small systems and small batches of various types of products.
The Smart Micro Factory (SMF) project was launched shortly thereafter. Its goal is to demonstrate the feasibility of a flexible, fully-fledged, reconfigurable production facility that fits on a workbench. It also aims to foster the development of an SMF skills pool, the creation of software modules and tools necessary for building flexible micro-factories, and the implementation of two scalable pilot lines tailored to the needs of industrial partners, using assembly processes typical of the local microtechnology industry.
In 2018, as part of an NPR project, NECO supported this initiative.