In Europe, industry is experiencing an invisible but decisive transformation for its future, namely that its machines are becoming software. Under the pressure of productivity, traceability and decarbonization, mechanics alone is no longer enough. Each welding station, each charger, each robot now contains millions of lines of code.
In Laval, the French company GYS embodies this revolution, thus its machines, formerly purely electromechanical, today function like computers, they calculate, communicate, self-diagnose and update themselves. This change does not only occur in the nature of products, but in that of European industrial knowledge.
From mechanics to programming
For decades, industry has measured itself by its physical production capacity, gold today, the value lies in embedded intelligence. More than 60% of the technological content of a machine now comes from electronics and software.
At GYS, a simple welding station today contains several million lines of code and performs up to 70,000 calculations per second, a true technological feat. These systems communicate with robots, cobots, supervision software or local cloud platforms. “Our products have become computers that weld, charge or repair“, summary Bruno BouyguesCEO of the company.
This shift from hardware to software is disrupting organizations, with design offices, previously dominated by mechatronics engineers, now welcoming developers, embedded systems specialists and data engineers. GYS now has more than 200 engineers and technicians, and software already represents a third of the R&D workforce, a share which could reach 60% within ten years.
An industry without standards
When Windows and Android imposed universal architectures, the industry has no common language, and itEvery manufacturer is faced with IT solitude in which it must develop its own ecosystem.
For GYS, Bruno Bouygues’ vision was to build the entire software chain internally, from the lower electronic layer, to the operating system and communication protocols, to develop management and diagnostic applications. While this vertical integration confers total control, it requires rare expertise, which it must maintain and develop continuously. A costly choice but which today proves to be a substantial competitive advantage. As an example of this know-how, the company has designed a universal library of drivers capable of connecting an industrial robot to a machine in a few minutes, compared to a week previously.
This absence of standardization also creates a strategic advantage in terms of sovereignty, manufacturers capable of coding their ecosystem become autonomous and independent of American or Asian software solutions and can thus guarantee the technological continuity of their products over twenty years, in the face of a sector which tends towards increasingly rapid obsolescence.
When software becomes the heart of the economic model
An essential point is that this change is no longer just a matter of technology, but is combined with business models. In the industry, the margin is now shifting towards software: supervision, updates, remote diagnostics, predictive maintenance, everyone will understand that mastering the technical chain is fundamental to building a solid economic model.
Large industrial customers are no longer just looking to buy a machine, but want to equip themselves with complete, modern equipment, equipped with reliable and scalable software infrastructure. A solution capable of being updated, interconnected and monitored over time. At GYS, each machine has a proprietary operating system and modular software modules, which enable new services to be activated after installation, ensuring the scalability of the machines sold.
This model also transforms the commercial relationship by allowing the addition of additional functions. Where the customer invested in CAPEX for equipment, he now thinks in OPEXin a logic of continuous service: updates, data, support, security. The software then becomes the guarantee of long-term performance and competitiveness.
The human reinvention of the factory
This software revolution involves building a solid learning curve. GYS chose to develop everything internally, in its Laval factories, rather than offshoring or outsourcing the code. The prototypes, mechanics, electronic cards and all software are designed on the same site.
This rapprochement between design and production creates a unique engineering culture. “The more additional functions a machine provides, the more these are used by our customers and the more they push us to move forward collaboratively on new subjects that we had not thought of alone. This co-development is exciting”, confides an R&D engineer.
This highly integrated and locally anchored model attracts a new generation of hybrid engineers, who are developers, electronics engineers and field practitioners.
Europe facing its software revolution
Faced with fast industry, Europe can play another card, notably that of sustainability and technological sovereignty. Thanks to this approach, GYS machines are designed and maintained for a long time, with stable on-board systems and reinforced security protocols. This model does not offer Chinese speed, but reliability and long-term compatibility which appeal to large industrial groups keen not to invest in machines that become obsolete too quickly.
This shift towards software is not an alignment with Silicon Valley either, but a European-style reinvention, finely mixing hardware and intelligent, robust software, capable of evolving without premature obsolescence.
What this changes for large industrial customers
For a car manufacturer, an energy company or an equipment manufacturer, this shift redefines the specifications. Buying a machine now means choosing a software architecture, and the initial cost is no longer the key criterion, it is now necessary to evaluate the supplier’s ability to maintain its code, to guarantee the compatibility of future generations and to ensure the security of updates.
These changes transform the supplier-customer relationship and turn it into a long-term partnership. GYS, by maintaining complete control of its code, guarantees software continuity and inter-machine compatibility, two essential conditions for the connected factories of tomorrow.
An irreversible transformation?
Behind the steel frames and electronic cards, the code becomes the real industrial raw material and ultimatelythe question is no longer whether this transformation will take place, but how many companies in Europe will be able to execute it with precision. Those who, like GYShave integrated the software at the heart of their industrial know-how, are taking a step ahead, the others will have to learn very quickly, or disappear
