Innovation

Our passion, innovation

Our innovation strategy

Our vision

Building on our base of strong industrial expertise, innovation is central to AKKA and the way we add value to the varied sectors in which we operate. Our values are reflected particularly in the smart mobility products and services where AKKA already has a strong presence, in our technology demonstrators where we engage people in the process of integrating smart technologies and new digital tools.

What we do

We help customers seize business opportunities by accelerating innovation. We integrate advanced technologies into customer used cases, using a design thinking approach to create optimal user experience. Particular attention is being dedicated to two specific areas:

The future of Mobility: products, services, usages of mobility in the future environment, for people and goods.

Engineering and process of the future: identifying and developing tools enabled by new technologies that will be an aid in designing, testing, industrializing and manufacturing solutions.

Innovation highlights

Smart Bertone Project

Our ambition was to boost the acceleration and braking of the Smart, a city car, transforming it into a F1 of cities without the emission of a single particle!

Link&Fly

A proposal to solve airport saturation in the near future, with a new multimodal concept of solutions and infrastructures, thanks to a fuselage that can be detached from its carrier

Working within an ecosystem

AKKA has developed an innovation ecosystem that integrates startups into its technology offer to create a dynamic environment for accelerating customer projects. We also stimulate “intrapreneurial” ideas from our own employees and integrate them into our overall approach.

We also open our major projects, such as LINK&FLY and NANOSAT to the participation of our partners. These projects are tackling major technology issues, and we believe that partnering with clients, universities, and other companies is the best way to unlock barriers to unleash disruptive innovation. In a fast-moving world where massive technology changes offer significant commercial, social and environmental opportunities to society, we build a common vision of the future by sharing foresight studies, and by working on cross-sector and cross-market smart mobility projects.

Agile and design thinking approach has become the cornerstone upon which we build innovation with and for our clients

Clients: Hutchinson, archeovision, I2S, Hi nov, teranovela, Geosat, Archeotransfert, vzleo, continental, spirps, Volvo, BMW, VW Group, BOSCH (Lead), NXP, Siemens, STMicroelectronics, CEA, AMS, IAB, VEDECOM, KTH, FH Joanneum, TWT, ICCS, Atos, Cities of Bari, Genova and Roma, ERTICO,FIA, EirGrid, EDF, Fraunhofer,VTT, Enercon, Innogy, Upside Energi, Soni, Siemens,Enel, KU Leuven
Clusters & Organizations: ANR, FUI, H2020, MOVEO,
Research Centers: Inria, IRCCYN, IFSTTAR, LAMIH, CNRS
School & Universities partners: Arts et Métiers, CentraleSupelec, Telecom Paris, CESI, ENAC, ENIT Tarbes, ENSEEIHT, ENSEIRB, INPG ENSIACET/ ENSIMAG, ENSTA, EPITECH, ESIEE, ECE, ENSIACET, ESTACA, ICAM, INSA, ISAE, IPSA, ISAT, IUT Paul Sabatier, IUT Blagnac, Polytech Nice, UTBM, UTT, UTC, 3iL Limoges, Université de Grenoble, Université de Marseille

AKKA’s University of Advanced Technology

A selection of our innovation projects

DRIVE BY WIRE Steering Wheel

AUTOPILOT

Development of an IOT/ITS Test Data Management Platform

SESAM: Lightened suspension arm

BIOT (Batteryless IoT)

GAIAA_Research Partnership

ELVITEN EL-Vs Integrated into Transport and Electricity Networks

CLARUS GeoDatavision

ZORRO (IOT Sensors) IoT Platform serving Manufacturing 4.0

Platoon Traffic Light Assist using IOT

EU-Sysflex Big data, machine learning and blockchain for electric power industry

SMART CITY (Smart 3D Regio)

Pierre G. Digital Manager

What do you think is the next big thing in digital?

“The big things I see involve analytics - gathering data and creating value out of it. There are also a lot of technical problems we encounter that can be overcome through new and creative usage of data. IoT is another big opportunity. Moreover, you have new graphic immersive and technology like AR and VR. But in my opinion, the main things are data-driven decision making and services.“

What parts are AKKA’s current digital offerings the most relevant/the most dominant?

Ulf B. Innovation Manager

What parts are AKKA’s current digital offerings are the most relevant/the most dominant ?

“I believe that at the moment, the most important is that we will be getting more and more IT technologies into the control unit of the car. Another key trend we are talking about is Cybersecurity. Finally we will have similar challenges in terms of user experience and content delivery to what we are currently experiencing with Bring Your Own Device.”

Arnaud M. Energy VP

How could AKKA help to resolve/tackle these challenges?

“I think AKKA is great on delivering first. We follow the “quick and dirty” principle, meaning we are able to deliver POF (proof of concept) very efficiently and quickly, and at a low price, so that our customers can quickly put the concept to the test. AKKA is great at that. “

Sylvain O. BU Director

What would be the biggest challenges for clients to implement these new technologies in their operations?

“We have to think about what end users really need - not just those who buy our technologies but who will use them on a day-to-day basis. We are working on getting a picture of that. Also, we need to realize that customer needs are not limited to solutions. We must provide services and support as well - this would be a vertical, even transformational way of seeing things.“

Nathalie C. Space VP

How is this being communicated to customers?

“Another great AKKA resource is the AKKAdemy. It adds real added value, because our customers often lack the right kind of training resource for new technologies, or with a global context. The AKKAdemy is a brand-new solution, one that is different from our competition - especially supporting the kind of highly skilled engineers who will be involved in our customers’ projects.“

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